I was the only progressive on a Braver Angels RV trip through Utah

January 2026

Within days of Charlie Kirk’s murder in September, I received an invitation to join a Braver Angels Red-Blue traveling tour across Utah. The purpose was to conduct workshops on immigration, find common ground among people who normally disagree, and teach cross-partisan communication skills to local elected officials. Given the atmosphere following Kirk’s murder, where Blues were blamed by the President on down, I was nervous about entering the fray, but by the time I got on the plane in November, tempers had cooled, and I felt reassured that I would return in one piece.

Braver Angels, like Noah’s ark, tries to bring everyone on in twos: a Red for every Blue and vice versa. However, given that Utah is such a Red state, by the time my ticket was paid, there was only one other Blue on the team of six. Then, she got into a serious car accident. So it was just me, the only progressive and only Jew amongst a group of conservative Braver Angels leaders who were predominantly Latter-day Saint members. Someone reasonably pointed out that I was experiencing what Reds feel in Braver Angels when they are outnumbered. We talked about this—and just about everything else—as we crossed the state in our rented RV, like a rock band, rolling into town and putting on a political workshop.

The main reason I was on the tour was that I had created the Common Ground Workshop for Braver Angels way back in 2019, when a group of rural Oregonians asked me to find a way for them to discuss abortion. I developed an exercise in which everyone gets a veto on the Points of Agreement, and took it to Oregon and to subsequent Braver Angels workshops on a range of issues—gun violence, climate change, health care, and more—teaching a cadre of moderators around the country to conduct the workshop.  

I was surprised by the power of conducting workshops on the same issue all over the country, as we did with the Trustworthy Elections Campaign. The workshops we held in Utah—moderated by Braver Angels’ co-founder, David Lapp, and me—were part of the Citizens Commission on Immigration. The Points of Agreement that appear across multiple workshops will inform a report to the nation in 2027 on how Reds and Blues can agree on ways to fix the immigration system, busting through the myth that there is no way for folks to come together on this issue. It will be a man-bites-dog story.

The workshops in Utah were intense. In one workshop, the first to speak was a young Blue Latino man from an immigrant family who said that his stepfather was deported that week, and that his father was in Mexico after being deported ten years ago. The Reds also had stories to tell. A working-class man had to give up his painting business because he was outbid by businesses using underpaid, undocumented workers.

I worried about how they would bridge these painful differences. Yet when they came together to debrief what they had heard, the participant from the immigrant family pointed out that they all desired that people be treated more humanely. The workshop went superbly after that. They reached agreements to increase legal immigration, secure the border, allow DACA recipients to become citizens, and create a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants who had been here lawfully for many years.

There were disappointments, too. In both Common Ground workshops, participants could not reach any agreements on the role of ICE. A Red participant said he thought ICE officers needed to be masked and unbadged, or they would be doxed and harassed. Another Red participant disagreed, saying they were police and needed to be transparent and accountable to the public. A third Red wasn’t convinced that ICE agents were untrained or that too much money was being spent on their budget. As a facilitator, I am committed to neutrality regarding the issue. But inside, I felt turmoil.

Some Reds were disappointed, too. They couldn’t understand why the Blues wouldn’t agree that immigration hurt American citizens in the areas of jobs and housing. Blues wanted to be sure this was proven, not just a talking point. Nonetheless, the workshop participants found many points of agreement and plan to have a Constituents Conversation on Immigration with their congressional representative to share them.

On the RV, our staff conversations were frank. I shared my perspective that authoritarians always find a segment of the population to demonize, an essential part of their overall strategy to divide us and exert control. I read out loud an email I received from my neighborhood listserv in Takoma Park, Maryland, about how, that day, city workers were harassed by ICE agents, some at the end of my block. I had a different lived experience, and they listened.

I asked them why they feel so defeated when the Right controls all three branches of government. They said that they were losing in the culture, pointing to Hollywood, universities, the media, and the art world. I tried to imagine what that was like from their perspective. I imagined being besieged and lonely.

The truth is that the best part of the trip was the friendships on the RV. We had fun together — eating junk food, including gas-station hot dogs, laughing about nothing much, and repeatedly going out for ice cream late at night. Everyone, despite their age, said they felt like teenagers again. I noticed, as we took in the sights of Utah, that everywhere you turn, you see the Rocky Mountains. We visited the majestic Zion National Park on a rainy day.

Yet my best memory was on the last night, when we had a four-hour drive back to Salt Lake City. Barreling through the dark on the highway, we began to sing together. First, the LDS folks sang a Mormon children’s song. Then David, who grew up in Amish Pennsylvania, taught us a haunting chant he learned in church. I taught them "Peace, Salaam, Shalom." Our voices almost harmonized.

When I got home to Maryland, it took me days to get out of that Utah RV. Slowly, I find myself putting back on the garment of anger and fear as I take in the constant stream of disturbing news. What I miss most is hanging that up for just one week.

— Reena Bernards, creator of Braver Angel's Common Ground Workshop and member of the BA Citizens Commission on Immigration

P.S. You can watch Judy Woodruff on PBS NewsHour cover a community meeting with a Congressional Representative, and the Citizens Commission on Immigration. This article was sent to Braver Angel's mailing list. Additionally, a version of this article was published on 12/5/2025 in the online magazine Alte.