That's the advice the Biden administration has gotten from psychologist Peter Coleman. In a series of memos, Coleman, a mediator with experience in conflicts as far-flung as the Middle East, Haiti and Africa, has advised the new administration that the best way to repair and reverse the extremism in U.S. politics is to focus Americans on the virulence of the nation's divisions and mobilize them to attack the problem.
Coleman has come to this conclusion after traveling the world consulting with peacemakers and policymakers and studying the societal conditions that often precede war, as well as those that often lead to peace. The current tensions in the U.S., Coleman argues, have their roots in the cultural and political shocks of the 1960s, which upset the existing order, and set the stage for a new era of political partisanship that began in the early 1980s and has been growing ever since.