Imagine that! Groups from opposing political parties and beliefs coming together to have a dialog, dissolving the divide-and-conquer strategy that's been used for ages to control and manipulate.

Seattleites took a 10-hour road trip to cross a political divide. Here’s what happened
Monica Guzman | The EverGrey
Mar 7, 2017
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Sherman County, Oregon, sits just south of the Washington border, east of the Cascades. Fewer than 2,000 people live in its 831 square miles. Stand on one of the hills near Moro, the county seat, and you’ll see wheat fields all around — and maybe some tall wind turbines.

Sherman County has very little in common with Seattle and King County. And yet, we’re connected: It’s the nearest county to ours that voted exactly opposite us in the presidential election.

While 74 percent of King County voters went for Clinton, 74 percent of Sherman County voters went for Trump.

So on Saturday, about 20 of us King County residents took a 10-hour road trip to pay the people of Sherman County a visit.

We called the trip “Melting Mountains: An Urban-Rural Gathering.” Sandy Macnab, a just-retired Sherman and Wasco County agricultural agent who planned the event with us, came up with the name. It refers to the snowmelt that runs down the mountains dividing the eastern and western parts of our states, nourishing the land below.

We like the metaphor. And though we know we can’t melt the political and cultural “mountains” that divide our two counties in an afternoon — red vs. blue, liberal vs. conservative, rural vs. urban — we figured we might help people take a first step.

We pulled up to Oregon State University’s Sherman County Extension Office a little after 11 a.m. About four hours, one meal, and many conversations later, we said goodbye to the 16 Sherman County residents we’d met to start the long drive back home.

The people who took part in the discussions told each other whom they’d voted for, revealed their stance on some big issues, talked about the hopes and concerns they had about their country over the next few years, and practiced listening to each other for minutes at a time (with instructions to not interrupt one another).

Here’s how they thought it went.

‘WE’RE LOOKING FOR THE SAME THING’