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HEALING THE GREAT DIVIDE
The Nantucket Project and Edward M. Kennedy Institute partner in search of bipartisan solutions.
story by The Editors
You see it in all aspects of life in America. From divisions in the United States Senate to the House of Representatives, partisanship has leached into daily life, even on Nantucket.
When President Joe Biden was featured on the Winter 2020 cover of N Magazine, within hours, nearly 800 people had canceled their subscriptions. When Donald Trump had a presidential fundraiser on Nantucket, there were three times as many protesters as there were guests. After George W. Bush spoke at the 2018 Nantucket Project, the conference’s founder, Tom Scott, was overwhelmed with aggressive responses as to why the former Republican president was invited. Scott endured similar and often abusive reactions when conservative talk show host Glenn Beck appeared on his stage.
The fact is, the behavior of people with different points of view toward those who have opinions with which they might not agree is endemic in our culture. Even in as bucolic a community as Nantucket, divisions are everywhere, and The Nantucket Project this year is aiming to try to find solutions.
The theme of this year’s Nantucket Project is pluralism, defined in the dictionary as “a state of society in which members of diverse groups maintain their traditional culture or special interests within a common civilization.” In other words, says Scott, “people from different backgrounds and different perspectives need to learn to tolerate different viewpoints or run the risk of our society breaking down, which may be happening before our eyes.”
The Nantucket Project’s goal is to pull together people with diametrically opposed perspectives and reintroduce the notion of bipartisanship and civil debate. The objective is to lower the temperature of both those on the stage and those in the audience and try to demonstrate that our differences can often be our greatest strengths.
The project’s guests include current and former presidential candidates Tim Scott and Andrew Yang, Fox broadcaster Laura Ingraham, CNN’s Chris Wallace, MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, and a wide range of other protagonists in the story that is our great divide. In and of themselves, these individuals, are not considered radicals or flamethrowers but are viewed by their counterparts as part of the problem when in fact the issue speaks to a new cultural phenomenon of intolerance that is putting the future of the republic at risk.
And yet, the great divide is certainly not limited to politics and the media. It has seeped into all aspects of our culture. “We need to change the narrative,” Tom Scott says. To that end, he has invited storytellers like Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, as well as cultural influencers like Rainn Wilson and Jennifer Lawrence, along with many others.
Says Scott: “There is no subject that we have addressed over the past 12 years that is more important than this.” He adds, “We have always tried to entertain different points of view, from former President George W. Bush to Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, but this year’s event reflects work we have been doing over the past year that has opened our eyes to the depth of the problem.”
The Nantucket Project has ventured to all 50 states and hosted conversations with more than 30,000 Americans to get their opinions on the state of the nation and their personal perspectives on what they feel is behind the great divide we are now experiencing.
To add another level of depth to the pluralism focus, Scott has brought on the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate as a partner for the event to be held on the island October 5-8. The institute, chaired by island summer resident Bruce A. Percelay, has become one of the most influential voices promoting bipartisanship in the United States—reflecting the partnership between the late Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, who despite their enormous differences became close colleagues and prolific legislators together.
Within its $100 million facility across from the JFK Library in Boston, the institute has an exact replica of the U.S. Senate chamber, which is now being used to showcase bipartisan discussions on a national scale in a program called The Senate Project. In concert with Fox News, the institute is hosting a series of ongoing debates between senators from both sides of the aisle in search of common ground. The debates are broadcast nationally and bring together senators who might otherwise not choose to interact. Percelay says, “There are perhaps no other topics in American life that can be deemed more important than pulling the country together given the fact that the notion of civil war is no longer a distant thought.”
Percelay, like many others, was deeply impacted by the events of January 6, 2021, and has focused the institute on several initiatives to help restore the Senate to the days when civil discourse and polite disagreement ruled the day.
The Edward M. Kennedy Institute is taking the bipartisan road deeper into the Senate through its Hyannis Port Summits, which bring highly respected former senators together for working weekends in an effort to produce workable solutions to the current tensions and partisan problems seen in the Senate today. Says Edward M. Kennedy Institute CEO Adam Hinds: “Harnessing the wisdom of former senators and working with existing senators on how to improve the functioning of the world’s most deliberative body is a goal that we have set and one that we think can actually move the needle.”
While the institute’s namesake, Ted Kennedy, was a die-hard Democrat, he was known by both parties as a bridge-builder and would likely not recognize the dynamics of the institution in which he served for nearly 47 years. More can be accomplished by working together than by working against one another, an ideal that motivated Scott and Percelay to join forces.
“The Senate Project and The Nantucket Project view the Kennedy-Hatch example as one that should inspire not just the leaders of today but our citizenry as a whole,” Percelay says.
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