# Braver Angels. Learning & Listening Across Political Divides: Wilk Wilkinson Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-do-we-fix-it-667/braver-angels-learning-listening-across-political-divides-wilk-wilkinson Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-do-we-fix-it-667/braver-angels-learning-listening-across-political-divides-wilk-wilkinson.md Podcast: [How Do We Fix It?](https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-do-we-fix-it-667) Published: 2025-02-21T10:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/howdowefixit/episodes/braver-angels-learning-listening-across-political-divides-wi Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/acast/s/howdowefixit/e/67b7ad4ab6cab9efc4c901ca/media.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/how-do-we-fix-it-667/episodes/braver-angels-learning-listening-across-political-divides-wilk-wilkinson Duration seconds: 1426 ## Resource What do you think of people who you totally disagree with about politics? Can you listen to their point of view and have a constructive conversation? Do you dismiss the other side as evil or deplorable? In this episode we hear from  Wilk Wilkinson , a Christian conservative who voted for Donald Trump. He has working class roots and grew up poor. A decade ago Wilk was enraged at liberals, but today he’s working closely with both reds and blues at  Braver Angels  to turn down the volume on loathing and distrust. “There’s no reason why I can’t have civil conversations with people on the blue side”, says Wilk. “We cannot get stuck in this idea that just because politically we don’t see eye-to-eye we are enemies.” Wilk’s podcast is “ Derate the Hate .” He’s had “guests from all over the spectrum and talked about gratitude, forgiveness, and personal accountability” with authors, journalists, life coaches, and psychologists. “I’ve taken away incredible things from people who I disagree with vehemently on politics and most other things”, Wilk told us. “We’ve all got our blind spots, but not one of us is not worth talking to.” Wilk works in the trucking industry in central Minnesota. He describes himself as a devoted husband, a loving father, and a steadfast Christian conservative. He came from humble beginnings and as a child lived in small towns across the upper Midwest. Wilk started working at the age of 10 and hasn’t stopped. Through his podcast and personal experiences, Wilk shares candidly about the power of personal accountability, gratitude, and civility. He firmly believes that our reactions to life's challenges define us more than the challenges themselves. In his view, civility entails recognizing the humanity in everyone, regardless of our differ… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/how-do-we-fix-it-667/episodes/braver-angels-learning-listening-across-political-divides-wilk-wilkinson/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-do-we-fix-it-667/braver-angels-learning-listening-across-political-divides-wilk-wilkinson.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.