Type “coalition” into Google Trends and you get a disturbing result. A 12-year decrease in interest. It’s anecdotal but easy to also map this graph to the increase in political and societal tribalism. Moving away from the idea we can work together even if some of our beliefs are in conflict.

“We might not agree on everything but can we agree to work together on this?” seems like a pretty powerful and potentially effective solution. One that most of us learn informally during childhood. “Politics makes strange bedfellows” is another idiom I recall hearing often when studying governance (turns out its origins are from Shakespeare’s Tempest).

Going into the next year perhaps we can all be a little more open to finding the common ground in our relationships.