On This, We Agree!

The Basis for U.S. Consensus and How We Can Solve Urgent Problems Today

Ray Archuleta, a conservation agronomist based in Kansas, begins the 2020 documentary film Kiss the Ground on the road rolling to his next destination. “I’ve been to every state in the nation delivering a simple and clear message: the key to successful farming starts with conserving rich and organically alive soil…Stop tilling the soil,” he pleads in front of an assembly hall of overall-clad farmers in the Midwest. Archuleta worked for over thirty years in the National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a service begun during FDR’s administration and founded to deal with the immense problem of soil erosion that led to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Archuleta reveals later in the film that he is a farmer himself, with 150 acres in Seymour, Missouri.  He knows the Midwestern soils well. What makes Archuleta’s voice in Kiss the Ground truly significant, however, is that he represents one individual in a constellation of like-minded people in the U.S. who are reaching out across the political divide to help alleviate some of the biggest problems we face in the U.S. one step at a time.

On This, We Agree! The Basis for U.S. Consensus and How We Can Solve Urgent Problems Today lays out ten urgent problems in the U.S. and describes where consonance and accord in America have already been reached on these problems. On This, We Agree! reviews Pew Research Polls and ethnographic interview material from the U.S. to argue that the United States voting block has more consensus on the causes and solutions of major problems in the U.S. than we are led to believe. This book identifies consensus in American (mis)perception, and consensus on potential solutions—how people (like Archuleta) and organizations are taking action to solve critical problems. On This, We Agree! relies upon Pew Research Polls, ethnographic interview material, and social science research for evidence Certainly, reaching and acting on political consensus was easier in Washington before hyper-partisanship and the prospect of being “primaried” for Republicans widened division in the U.S. Congress.

This book explores some of the histories of bipartisanship similar to other books like Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein (2020), but it focuses more directly on how consensus is being acted upon by non-government organizations and individuals across party lines, templates for bipartisan action in the future. On This, We Agree! argues with polling data that political division in the U.S. is, first and foremost, a perception problem. Ideological differences are much more nuanced than reported, and divisions can be imagined differently—as an ideological continuum with much overlap in the center. On This, We Agree! also argues that we can muster the immense power of the majority middle ground with the consensus we have right now—we could create real and lasting change! Ultimately, the title of this book also points to my search to redefine ideas of difference and consensus themselves in anthropological terms for today.

With a cursory examination of mainstream television news, it is not difficult to imagine the U.S. Electorate is deeply and hopelessly divided on critical issues within economics, the environment, diversity, and gun rights. Noteworthy books (Hate, Inc., 2022) have brought some clarity on how mainstream news is saturated with values statements, framed by political agendas or partisan tones, and subject to the loyalty of a narrow population market. Books like Stand Out of Our Light (2002) have indicated how media is driven by an attention-seeking economy that prioritizes controversy and dissension. Other books have described how right-wing media preys on distraction and confusion (United States of Distraction, 2019). Yet little is published today on research pointing to the amount of consensus that already exists in the United States on existential issues that demand action and response. Few trade books have pointed to the role of consensus in history: how deliberative communication played a vital role in democracy and where the mandate of popular consensus (when applied) brought societal change and transformation. On This, We Agree! also interrogates the structural roots of division in U.S. society today, threading into the book evidence that: race is a misconception of human difference 250 years out of date; Western dualism has a role in the way Americans assign difference; nihilism is an old tactic of authoritarians (“nothing is true. Therefore everything is also true”); the capitalization of all living experience obscures and amplifies difference; trickle-down economics never worked to enrich the middle class (even Ronald Reagan was disappointed with the outcome), and all societies universally believe deception is a vice.

Each chapter in On This, We Agree! is formatted concisely and audibly to query and reach into substantive discussions in 35 pages. Each chapter will begin with real-life examples illustrative of the chapter topic, then segue into prominent perceptions and misperceptions of national consensus. The middle chapter reveals the basis for division and consensus, providing ethnographic and historical evidence to ground discussion at a deeper level. Each chapter then moves into actual U.S. consensus registered through polling data and research, outlines potential solutions for urgent problems, and solutions to those same problems already in place. Each chapter concludes with a “discussion”—asking questions within a conclusion to strive to be less declarative and more dialogical to end chapters. A short introduction will preview the top 10 most pressing problems as polled in the U.S., and a short epilogue will extend queries from each chapter discussion and update the movement of popular consensus in the U.S. Unlike other big idea high concept books, On This, We Agree!cites popular and competitive titles in a bid for information transparency, and with my own underlying purpose as an anthropologist of the public sphere to build and nurture a vibrant, more transparent public sphere that emphasizes data and proactive discussion.

On This, We Agree! critiques the “thinness” of our information sphere represented by mainstream news, but this book also urges the U.S. population to question the source material of reporting—bias, assumption, and sensationalism have always been a factor in newsprint. The deception and libel in “news rags” have led to violence—the topic of the musical Hamilton. Strategic propaganda and journalism as a public relations conduit for a political party is a relatively new phenomenon for mainstream television news. However, non-partisan organizations like factcheck.org are now available to check the claims of news and information, which is more necessary now that foreign actors like the Russian government are actively working to coop information. A more significant problem in televisual mainstream media is their narrow conception of what defines newsworthy information. Increasingly news focuses on topical stories derived from the loudest voices that are often selected for sensationalism, ratings, and broad recirculation. The proliferation of media channels forces broadcasters to rely more and more on a target audience and program content that matches audience expectations. On This, We Agree! argues that censorship is not the answer to misinformation. Reaching an informed consensus requires greater inclusion of information sources, including non-profit media, first-hand experience, primary academic research, and embedded journalism sources.

Finally, On This, We Agree! aims to bolster dialogue-as-democracy in America, which has been under assault by vilification and ambivalence in the U.S. internet sphere. We need to find avenues to talk and talk civilly. Finding consensus is about recognizing where the political center has shifted in the U.S. and reclarifying priorities of the majority in a political landscape of attention-seeking pundits and candidates bent on distraction and manufactured urgency. We need a book that re-instills trust in ourselves and in governmental institutions and non-governmental institutions working for the general public good; to remind us that there are organizations working transparently to lift Americans out of poverty; to bolster the Middle Class, point out middle-ground solutions for ecological resilience, and to promote anti-racism with a carrot and less of a stick.  It only takes political willpower to make major changes in the U.S. As Ray Archuleta confesses, speaking to the camera after speaking in front of conservative Midwestern farmers: “We have a social problem [in the U.S.]. We have an education issue, and until we get that right, we can’t fix our ecological issues.” Truth through transparency leads to transformation, but the process takes time and persistence beyond headlines and distractions: “I will drive …a thousand miles if I have to save one farm, open one heart and one mind. It’s that one mind that you change—you don’t know if that will affect another mind, another heart, that’s what happened to us.”