RESOURCES

We're collecting here things to help you Help America Get Along. We're doing our best to maximize effectiveness and minimize bias, and are open to suggestions on approaches and specific things to include.

GENERAL DISCLAIMER: We find these things inspiring and useful and we hope you will too, but inclusion here does not imply unqualified endorsement - judge for yourself. If you detect a problematic bias in anything here please let us know so we can either adjust our description or simply remove it.

Sections:

Background Materials about divisiveness, and lack thereof, in the U.S.
Information Sources that at least make an effort to minimize or mitigate bias.
Stories and Presentations
Quotes
Cartoons

Background Materials

Some things that explore divisiveness in America...

"Purple America" explores American party voting patterns.
"The moral roots of liberals and conservatives" is an 18-minute TED talk by Jonathan Haidt, from 2012. He makes many interesting observations, including that TED itself appeals more to the Left than to the Right.

These infographics provide wonderful overviews of U.S. political history:

A Visual History of the American Presidency
A Visual History of the US House
A Visual History of the US Senate
A Visual History of US State Boundaries
Death and Taxes 2016

(We are in no way affiliated, we just like them.)

Information Sources

All Sides has a mission to "expose people to information and ideas from all sides of the political spectrum", and we admire their openness about where they are coming from and who they are.
A Starting Point looks good (so far) for getting a range of political views right from the sources.
Snopes is a good resource for information and references, though we question their claim of being "definitive". (We sent them a query about this on August 27, haven't heard back yet.)
Wikipedia, as everyone knows, is the most reliable and unbiased source of information in the World! [citation needed] We like that joke, because it speaks to the difficulty faced by anyone attempting (or claiming) to be neutral. Wikipedia is not (cannot be) infallible, but it does provide tons of information and references on almost any subject, and is often a good place to start digging.
11 Non-Partisan Fact-Checking Websites is a list compiled by blogger J. Greller, whom we know little about but it's a nice list. (We notice she omits Snopes.) She also includes a reference to the IFLA infographic on How To Spot Fake News which we find in line with the HAGA mission.

STORIES and presentations

Daryl Davis and his engaging with the KKK (2016 documentary) is a fascinating story about finding common ground in the unlikeliest places, with many layers.

In How To Disagree Productively and Find Common Ground, Julia Dhar presents what she has learned from her experience as a world debate champion, with many useful insights.

Frank Olivier's Tricks To Happiness is well worth 18 minutes of your time. How it relates to Helping America Get Along may not be immediately clear, but we are confident that it does. And it's just good fun!

QUOTES

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

- Preamble

THINK before you speak:

Is it True?
Is it Helpful
Is it Inspiring?
Is it Necessary?
Is it Kind?

Just because you have the right to be heard doesn't mean that you are right.

- Anonymous

There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear.

- Buffalo Springfield, 1967

... to prevent [the Spirit of Party from] bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

- George Washington, 1796

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.

- Michel de Montaigne, 1532-1592

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

- Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662

Can we all get along?

- Rodney King, 1992