Airdate: September 24, 2025
Julie Rose: How do we turn down the temperature in
this dangerously divided moment?
Manu Meel: Right after the assassination, the central thing we heard from left-leaning students, right-leaning students, from students in the middle, was not, "We're going to back off from a conversation." It wasn't extreme anger, it was a desire to listen. I think what we have to do is show the American people that that's actually a revolutionary concept today.
Julie Rose: Hey, it's Julie. Welcome to Uncomfy, a show about sticking with moments that challenge us even when they're uncomfortable. And I get it, nobody likes to be Uncomfy, but I have learned from experience, and you probably have too, that sometimes a little discomfort has benefits if we can stay open and curious about it, and that is what we're here to explore, so let's get Uncomfy. Today, I am joined by Manu Meel. He is the CEO and co-founder of BridgeUSA. It's a nonprofit with chapters on 93 college campuses where students gather to talk about their political differences constructively. Manu, I'm so glad to speak with you today. Thanks for your time.
Manu Meel: Julie, thank you for having me on. I'd say
being welcomed on a podcast to be uncomfortable is exactly what we need right
now, so I am, I am ready to be Uncomfy with everyone listening.
Julie Rose: Well, let's dig into the big Uncomfy thing
that so many of us are grappling with right now, and that is the death, the
assassination of Charlie Kirk, and the response and the aftermath and how to
grieve as a nation, and also how to respond in a way that's productive. So,
interestingly, Charlie Kirk, through his organization, Turning Point USA, was
also focused on the same group of people, college students. Of course, we know
he was assassinated on a college campus during one of his public debate
interaction events, actually just a few miles from where I work here in Utah,
so I'm curious what you have seen from college students in the last few weeks,
the college students you work with.
Manu Meel: Well, I think what made the tragic Charlie Kirk assassination so poignant, and I've been trying to really think about this, it is twofold. I think one is a lot of people on the, on the left underestimate how powerful he was as a figure for young conservatives in particular, and, and I think the second is that he was shot under a poster that said, "Prove me wrong," while he was actively having a conversation with a student, and I think the assault on Charlie's life was not just an assault on Charlie; I think it was a bullet and an attack on the very mission of conversation and dialogue, which is the thing that myself and my fellow young people at BridgeUSA been advocating for, for, for years, frankly, but especially in the last two weeks. I think the reason why the mission of BridgeUSA, which is, as you said, "To empower young people to engage in constructive dialogue," feels so resonant, is that I think there's a new counterculture brewing, and I talked about this in, in a few other spaces, but right after the assassination, we had our, our amazing chapter team contact chapter leaders from across the country, get as much information as possible from left-leaning students, right-leaning students, from students in the middle, uh, students from across different geographies, and the central thing we heard was not, "We're going to back off from a conversation." It wasn't extreme anger, it was a desire to listen. And that desire to listen, I think what we have to do is show the American people that that's actually a revolutionary concept today, and it's actually courageous, and that's how you start to enlist people in this movement to listen to each other.
Julie Rose: You know, I'm glad you mentioned that you've
been doing this work for quite some time now. Um, so, I mean, in your heart of
hearts, was this, on some level, did it feel like a failure that you, you've
been trying to encourage on college campus, campuses dialogue, and, you know,
whether you agree or not with Charlie Kirk's views or even his approach, like,
he was trying to encourage dialogue of some sort, and to feel like, and he was
assassinated in the midst of it, was, I mean, I've, I've spoken to a lot of
bridge builders who feel like, "If this can happen in this context, what
are we doing?"
Manu Meel: Uh, you know, I deeply disagreed with Charlie oftentimes on the ways in which he showed up to campus and the form and style, but I tenaciously respected his purpose. Uh, in fact, we had met a few times in the past, and the way I describe it is, is two rival sports teams, and not red and blue, rival in terms of form and style, bridging versus ideological engagement, right? And in every one of those conversations, and as I've listened to him over the years, the spirit in which he operated is sort of the same spirit that I think animates activists from crosswalks of life, and I think it's something that the left and right can unify on. The reason why I share that is because the tragedy of American politics is one in which we're an experiment where it takes a lot of failure to drive certain cultural revolutions, and this is the case with every social change effort in the history of this country. Frankly, this is how human beings on an individual level operate. I mean, how many of us have kids that talk about, "Man, if only they didn't learn by falling on their face every time?" And here's the thing, last week, I was in DC speaking to a group of philanthropists, and I, I, I do share one frustration, which is that the problem with a lot of people that support work around dialogue and engagement is that for the longest time, they've had this attitude that there's a lot of short-term threats, whether you're on the right and the left. I mean, folks that are listening to this can relate to this. There's a threat to free speech, if you're on the right. There's a threat to immigration, if you're on the left. There's a threat to identity, whatever the case might be, and so the threat is so urgent, we can't invest in the idea of listening to each other, and people asked me, time and time again, "What's the point?" I would ask that person back, in the spirit of being Uncomfy, "How's it going?" And, as it relates to failures of bridgers, this is something that I really wanna emphasize, and I mentioned this on our partner organization, Braver Angels' call which is a great organization that you work closely with, as you know, and I said, "What does it mean to outrageously bridge build?" And what I mean by that is the problem with bridgers is we're nowhere to be found, found when the controversy happens. When a protest on a campus happens, where is the BridgeUSA chapter? When a controversy in our community happens, where are the dialoguers? And the challenge with that is we never look at ourselves and see ourselves as evangelists for a cause; we see ourselves as picking up the trash of society, and that is not a helpful way to think about organizing and activating. So, I think your critique is right on, but I think organizations like BridgeUSA are leading the way on this because I think young people have that attitude and feel.
Julie Rose: I'm, I'm, I'm glad you mentioned out, "outrage," right, "outrageous" bridge builders, because you know that outrage is actually what sells out in the world today. It's what drives the algorithms on social media. It's the thing that kind of keeps people, you know, listening and coming back to the same conversation over and over again, when who can, who can out, you know, out burn whom in our world. Um, so I mean, isn't, isn't dialogue, like, completely counterintuitive or, or just counter in general to the idea of outrage and kind of what works? How do you make dialogue actually clickable in a way that outrage is?
Manu Meel: So, every Monday, I host a podcast called
The Hopeful Majority. I didn't wanna host a podcast. I was a pre-med
student. I started college, 2017, as a freshman. Uh, my mom is still confused.
You know, the amount of times I get asked, "You, why don't you be a
doctor?" These days, I say, "Honestly, it would be easier to be a
doctor." Um, I have no interest in doing this work publicly. Why do I say
that? It's because the fact is that in the attention economy, the battle space
that we have to understand is one of outrage, but let's get a little bit more
nuanced on this. Outrage sells, nuance doesn't. That was sort of one of my
taglines that inspired this work, but in the last two weeks, the amount of
coverage and engagement that our students have gotten, just for context, uh,
since the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk, we've had 27 new chapter
requests, Republicans primarily, actually,
Julie Rose: New chapters, that wanna start a new chapter
their college campus?
Manu Meel: And counting and counting. Uh, for context, we had 94 chapters. Our vision to get to 800, it's quite significant, it's continued to grow. We've had people from all walks of life reach out to us, and we've had three videos in particular, and this is what I want to talk to you about as it relates to outrage, go not only absolutely viral, but they actually converted people, where we added 4.7K new followers in 10 hours. So, what does that tell me? Yes, the outrage industrial complex is real, but what actually drives people's clicks is not necessarily outrage, it is what is counter-revolutionary. What is, what is different? What is unique? It's sort of the same impulse, I mean, you'll know this as a journalist, that drives storytelling. Anyone can tell the story of a conversation, but the conflict is really unique. It's not that the conflict is inevitably unique, it's that the conflict is unique because conversation is the norm. But today, conflict is the norm. Conflict is boring. Violence is exhausting, and so now our opportunity is, "How do you capitalize on the psychology of the outrage industrial complex to channel that into bridging as a counter-revolutionary project?" And last thing I'll just say on this, Julie, is I know when people hear, "Counter-revolutionary?" What is this Marxist up to?" Counter-Revolutionary was something that Charlie embodied. All counter-revolutionary means is you're cutting against the grain with a disruptive idea, and what's hilarious to me about this very sad moment is the disruptive idea that I have is, "People should talk to each other. Who figured?" But that's our opportunity.
Julie Rose: Describe one of these videos that went viral
and actually converted people. So, what, what was it? What was the essence of
it?
Manu Meel: I want to give a big, big, big thank you to
our, uh, lead content creator and marketer, Adam Calder, who has been working
with our team. He was a president at the Jacksonville University chapter, a
student just like myself, came on board full-time last year, and he had this
really smart idea. There was a student at our University of Pittsburgh chapter,
Julie, that was speaking to Charlie Kirk when Charlie Kirk and Vivek Ramaswamy
came to one of their Prove Me Wrong events at the University of Pittsburgh. And
the student, Rachel, comes up to the stage in front of Charlie and says,
"I disagree with you, but my friends are standing right behind you. I see
that you're here for a desire to debate in the marketplace of ideas, and I lead
an organization called Bridge Pittsburgh, which is a chapter of BridgeUSA,
and my job is to disagree with you civilly. So, while I might disagree with
you, this is what we need." And that interaction just went absolutely
viral. Um, 40,000 likes on Instagram in, I think, seven hours, uh, 4.7 thousand
new followers added. And if you go to the comment section, the comment section
usually around bridging work is, "This stuff is nonsense. This guy, all he
cares about is kumbaya." This was, "These are the activists of
tomorrow," and that's how I think we're gonna hack the algorithm. It's
because people don't actually follow outrage; what they follow is what is
unique and different, and people for too long have taken bridging for granted.
Julie Rose: What do these meetings look like on these
college campuses, then, a, a bridge, a bridge chapter gathering?
Manu Meel: This is how a chapter usually starts. Um, one student, one faculty member, one student reaches out to us, they say, "Hey, we're incredibly passionate about building a chapter. We wanna have dialogues and conversations." And here's the key thing, "We want to build a culture of pluralism," so it's not just about, "Let's just hold a space for dialogue, conversation, let's debate each other." Like, "How do we actually push this culture on campus," which is a different task. It's,
Julie Rose: "culture of pluralism," like, I
feel like "pluralism" gets tossed around an awful lot these days.
What do you mean by "pluralism"?
Manu Meel: Uh, three things. One is "E pluribus unum: Out of many, one," this idea that disagreement is actually plus, plus, plus. It is how you build a better union. Two is that you can't have a democracy if you cannot talk to each other; it's that simple. And three is that a culture in which you have diverse ideas, not from the left standpoint of diversity, but a genuine mode of conservative, liberal, and across the board, you can actually arrive at net positive, and the best way to describe this is your family dynamics. Think about a Thanksgiving dinner table. Um, when the crazy uncle from the left and the crazy uncle from the right sit down, and if they were the only two voices there and you didn't have a culture of pluralism, it would resolve into a shouting match, and everyone would give up. A culture of pluralism would be you sitting at the dining table there, would say, "All right, maybe you both have some truth. Let's build from here." That's what a culture of pluralism looks like.
Julie Rose: Got it. So, BridgeUSA begins with,
"We wanna open a chapter here to encourage a culture of pluralism."
Manu Meel: Pluralism and bridging on campus. Student reaches out, what our amazing chapter team, which are ex-chapter leaders, they'll step in, they'll train that student across how to host these conversations, how to host these dialogues, they'll then work with a faculty advisor and administrators on campus, they'll recruit five to six other students. They'll do three things. The first is, every two weeks, they'll host a discussion. It's not meant to be high tenets, it's just a place for people to just practice the skill, consistently show up. They have four norms of discussion. These norms of discussion drive how a student shows up in that conversation. Two is they'll partner with university chapter leaders, presidents, college administrators, folks like yourself that might have radio shows and podcasts affiliated with their campus and really amplify their voice. And third is what we call, um, again, "outrageous bridge building." Like, "How do you work with the Turning Point USA group on campus? How do you work with the college democrats? How do you become the biggest lunch table at in the lunchroom to actually drive these conversations?"All we are doing is calling back to fundamental American ideas, but we're doing it in a robust and exciting way, and I think the American people are ready for that.
Julie Rose: And what, what are these ground rules? What
are the four, what did you call them, the norms, um, because it seems like
that's probably really important, right, that, that it's not a free for all
when you show up?
Manu Meel: This is all about social permission. We want a permission structure that guides our conversation, so if you show up in a room where the goal is combat or winning, which, again, was what Charlie used to do, and that's something that I think is time to now think about, "Is that the right approach?" Our approach is, "It's not about winning, it's about understanding." If you can understand why the person opposite from you disagrees with you, you understand at a values level how to reach the other person, and I think that is profound because, frankly, at this time, no one is winning in 10-minute debates. It's just not gonna happen. It's just not where we exist. So, the four norms of discussion were created in Berkeley in 2017 to drive these conversations. One is you listen to listen, not to respond. Two is you respond to the argument, not the person. Three, which is very simple, is don't interrupt or have side conversations, which by the way, in some ways is the rule that oftentimes get, gets enforced the most because it reflects trust, and four, this was the most controversial one in the early days, but I think it's very powerful, is people represent only themselves, not broader social groups or identities. So, if you're a student at BYU, and you are a member of the Church, you might show up in that conversation as a member of the Church, but for the purposes of this conversation, you are here as Bob or Bill or Michael, not the representative of the entire Church, and the reason why that's important is because too much and too often we take individual disagreements and broaden them out to groups. So, "I represent all Indian-Americans in the United States," and then it just becomes polarizing.
Julie Rose: So, I guess the thing I've been wondering lately, Manu, is can any of this actually work to bring down the temperature and hopefully avoid further political violence like this if the loudest voices are not onboard, you know, whether it's broadcasters, pundits, influencers, top political officials are interested more in winning than they are in understanding?
Manu Meel: You're the expert here. Why do you think
they're interested in, in that?
Julie Rose: In winning? Because I think there's a lot at
stake, because I think the politicians want to win elections, pundits and
influencers want to win clicks.
Manu Meel: That's right. It's all about incentives, which means that you, the listener, have a much, much more powerful position in the equation than you think you have. They used to say, "Vote with your feet." Like with your I, uh, temperament. Share with your temperament. Tomorrow, if the broadcasters notice stories like ours and yours and what, you know, people like Mónica Guzmán, Maury Giles of Braver Angels, other great organizations do across the country, saw greater attraction interest, they would do that. It's all an incentive game, which is why recognizing that we live in the outrage industrial complex, which very simply means, "Outrage drives money and influence," is not about actually ignoring the reality you just posited, it's one about how, uh, myself, as a leader in this space, can think about how to more effectively articulate and win in the zeitgeist by showing up, by having these conversations in the immediate moment. That's why we had, I think, 20 or so events planned in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, and this wasn't just after, this was after the Israel/Palestine protests. The second thing is you as the consumer control the incentive structure. All of that to say, "You absolutely do not need the loudest voices on board," and the reason why you don't need the loudest voices on board is because the loudest voices actually represent a very small slice of the American people; it just happens to be the most active slice of the American people. I talk about this often, the power of 10, 10%. 10% of all users on Twitter post 80% of content. 10% of the electorate shows up in each primary election, which means that in a town of 3,000 people, 300 of them are dictating what happens in our politics. So, my job is actually, "How do you empower and activate the silent majority?" And this is where I take a lot of inspiration from Charlie Kirk, is he understood how to do that with the conservative silent majority 'cause he faced the same problem as it relates to college campuses in 2012, 2013, so it's totally doable. It's a question of recognizing what your power is in this moment, and you are not powerless. In fact, you have the power to flip incentives to point towards pluralism and nuance.
Julie Rose: Manu Meel is the CEO and co-founder of BridgeUSA. It's a nonprofit. They have chapters on 93 college campuses and counting where young people meet to have constructive discussions across their political differences to promote a culture of pluralism. You can find out more at bridgeusa.org and also check out Manu's podcast, The Hopeful Majority. Thanks so much for taking time today, Manu, and for the work you're doing.
Manu Meel: Thank you, Julie, and thanks to everyone
listening.
Julie Rose: And thank you for getting Uncomfy with us today. Have you been interacting with someone in your life who sees the current moment or perceives maybe even the assassination of Charlie Kirk very differently? What is hard for you about that interaction, and what's working for you? I'd love to hear your story. I'm sure it's deeply Uncomfy. That's what we're here for, to create a community that not only values pluralism, diversity of ideas, but also understands the value of getting just a little Uncomfy, so email me at uncomfy@byu.edu. Let's inspire each other! Or you can connect with us on social media; we are @uncomfy.podcast on Instagram. We'll be posting clips of this conversation with Manu Meel, and we'd love to have you help us amplify those as well to get this message out more broadly. Uncomfy is aBYUradio podcast. Samuel Benson produces it, and the team includes Hyobin Kim and Sam Payne. Our theme music was composed by Kelsey Nay. I'm Julie Rose. Can't wait to get Uncomfy with you again next week.
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