American Public Square and Listen First Project will kick off the Second Annual Bridging Movement Summit with “Turning Down the Heat: Rebuilding Trust in an Age of Outrage” on September 23 at 6 PM.

Jeremy Hobson, host of the nationally syndicated public radio program The Middle, will moderate the conversation with Mike Abrams of The New York Times, Olajumoke Banjo of the The Aspen Institute, and Dr. Branden Polk, LMSW of Stand Together, examining what is driving America’s crisis of trust and what each of us can do to begin rebuilding it.

The conversation will be streamed live from Kansas City and later broadcast nationally through The Middle reaching listeners on nearly 500 public radio stations.

Register to attend in person or watch the livestream on September 23 at 6 PM Central Time:

Turning Down the Heat: Rebuilding Trust in an Age of Outrage

Breakout session, September 24

I’m returning not just as an attendee, but as a presenter. My presentation, “Outrage 201,” builds directly on insights gathered across 150+ expert interviews on Outrage Overload.

I’ll be addressing a major friction point in the depolarization ecosystem: why standard “bridging 101” tropes are frequently rejected by the broader public as unappealing “broccoli” or dismissed as “left-coded” traps—and what structural adjustments are necessary to overcome that resistance. The talk maps out the algorithmic, psychological, and technological machinery driving the outrage industry, framing how those underlying dynamics directly impact the bridge-building movement.

We’re still working to offset travel and lodging costs for the trip. If you value our diagnostic, research-grounded look at the outrage machine and want to help represent Outrage Overload on this national stage, you can pitch in here:

👉 outrageoverload.net/contribute

Thank you for making this community-funded effort possible!