{"id":326,"date":"2026-05-30T11:37:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T11:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=326"},"modified":"2026-05-30T11:37:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T11:37:59","slug":"what-americans-really-think-in-these-troubled-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=326","title":{"rendered":"What Americans Really Think in These Troubled Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"The<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

These may be<\/span> confusing and difficult times in America, but I consider myself pretty lucky. Most weekends, I get to hang out with an extraordinary group of people from around the country and see things their way. These folks are complicated, wise, and funny\u2014and they\u2019ve all been through a lot.\u00a0<\/p>

Read more Watch: Is Trump\u2019s Party Stranglehold Actually a Death Grip?<\/a><\/p>\n

There is Sammy from rural Missouri via Chicago, a former teen gangbanger turned social worker, who helps troubled young men exit from hate groups. He learned in prison about \u201cshowing people empathy when they least deserve it,\u201d after a therapist pulled him from the brink in solitary confinement. \u201cA lot of folks mistake listening for conceding,\u201d Sammy told me, \u201cBut when you stop listening, that\u2019s<\/em> conceding\u2014\u2019cause then there\u2019s no pathway for them to walk out of the place they\u2019re in.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is Braden, a twenty-something forestry worker\u00a0from Colorado, who wanted to pry his blue-collar work buddies away from the lies of far-right talk radio. Political arguments and\u00a0his efforts to blend in with a \u201cbig-ass truck and getting all dieseled out at the gym\u201d didn\u2019t work. What convinced them, he found, was just being his jokester self and\u00a0enduring long work days with them: \u201cI\u2019m a Christian, a Socialist, a Zoomer with a Jesus Piece earring and a Zebra T-shirt on. They\u2019re still like, \u2018you\u2019re a kook.\u2019 But I\u2019m a kook they trust.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is Margaret, a septuagenarian South Carolinian who discovered her ancestors were some of the biggest slave-traders in Charleston\u2019s history\u2014and who decided that was worth publicizing to all of her genteel friends in town. Why? \u201cShame doesn\u2019t do anything. But if we can\u2019t talk about the past, we can\u2019t move forward together.\u201d<\/p>\n

A couple of nights a week, I embody these people onstage, along with various others including election organizers, a trio of barbers, a troubled Iraq War vet, and a survivor of a mass shooting. They are the focus of my latest solo show of journalistic theater, \u201cTakes All Kinds,\u201d about the politics of persuasion and change. I recreate my time spent with them and depict their personal stories. It\u2019s a privilege and a challenge. The experience of communing with an audience to draw inspiration from these subjects\u2019 lives never ceases to feel powerful.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I traveled the country in 2023 and 2024 for field research, or what I like to call \u201cthe journalism of hanging out.\u201d I do a lot of audio recording and go well beyond interviewing. Once things get rolling, there are plenty of jokes and laughs as I spend time observing how they interact in different contexts. They take me to a retirement party for a co-worker, or to an Atlanta Braves game, or to an old neighborhood steeped with memories from their childhood. I also collect ambient sounds for the show: the chatter in the bar where I first met the gravelly voiced combat vet, the thumping bass and whine of razors inside the Las Vegas barbershop, a whooshing torrential downpour while on a house porch in Charleston.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now I find myself thinking about their collective story as the midterm elections approach. For me and theater audiences, these people show how complex and often contradictory Americans\u2019 views really are\u2014they don\u2019t plug easily into partisan categories or poll numbers. Elevating their experiences onstage tends to leave audiences feeling \u201coddly hopeful,\u201d as I often hear afterward.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

Read more Watch: The Violent ICE Crackdown Comes to New Jersey<\/a><\/p>\n

So many Americans these days are talking past each other. We burn up so much time on \u201csocial\u201d media that mostly leaves us outraged and alone. We seem to consider less what might be behind the complicated views of others. When I went back recently to talk with the guys at the Vegas barbershop, Danny, the elder in the crew, told me that he disliked the ICE raids in LA and Minneapolis but also said that \u201cbeing profiled for being brown, that\u2019s nothing new, homie.\u201d And he clapped back at the notion that it\u2019s all on Trump. \u201cI\u2019m Latino, but I\u2019m not an immigrant,\u201d he said. \u201cShit, my people were chillin\u2019 in New Mexico eating green chile way before y\u2019all white people got here.\u201d<\/p>\n

In June, I\u2019ll perform the show for the first time in Washington, DC\u2014maybe an elected leader or two might even catch it\u2014and in New York City and Sacramento. The director of the show, Aldo Billingslea, and I plan to keep taking it around the country. We\u2019ve already had the joy of bringing the show back to some of the places and people whose stories it includes. In Charleston, I had the surreal and profound experience of embodying Polly Shepherd\u2014a survivor of the racist gun massacre in 2015 at the Mother Emanuel AME Church\u2014in front of her and her community. Seventy-nine years old and soft spoken, Polly had endured unspeakable horror and loss. Onstage together after the show, we did a talk-back with the audience. \u201cA lot of people have tried to tell my story,\u201d she remarked. \u201cYou got it right to a T. It was beautiful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Collective witness is often understood in a religious sense, but it can also refer to making meaning out of trauma or pain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I loved getting to know these people, and now I get to honor that as a hundred or so strangers a night also have that experience.<\/strong> For me, this work models a way of listening and attending to each other. It\u2019s more than just tolerating each other\u2019s viewpoints. It\u2019s about relishing eccentricities and celebrating connections.\u00a0And it\u2019s not downplaying the divides in a simplistic or kumbaya kind of way. The work of\u00a0 embodying these people onstage took two years of gathering their stories and honing in on the nuances of who they are.<\/p>\n

So for about 75 minutes in the dark each night, audiences and I revel in their stories. It\u2019s a shared experience of curiosity, joy, and uncertainty about what might be ahead.\u00a0Or, as an election organizer named James says on an Atlanta street corner while hustling to register voters: \u201cIt\u2019s not always pretty, but right now, bro, it takes all kinds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dan Hoyle is an actor, playwright, and journalist based in Oakland, California. His solo show, \u201cTakes All Kinds,\u201d is touring nationally through fall 2026.<\/em><\/p>

Read more Everyone\u2019s Fleeing Trump\u2019s Freedom 250 Concerts<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spent two years doing \u201cthe journalism of hanging out\u201d and finding some extraordinary answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Americans Really Think in These Troubled Times - Moving and Mortgage Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=326\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Americans Really Think in These Troubled Times - Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I spent two years doing \u201cthe journalism of hanging out\u201d and finding some extraordinary answers.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=326\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-30T11:37:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/a5c88ca3dd7d6518d951a96f9326470c.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1124\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=326#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=326\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6b7c79bcfd888d98f34c5413df7e81a2\"},\"headline\":\"What Americans Really Think in These Troubled Times\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-30T11:37:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=326\"},\"wordCount\":1094,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=326#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/143a869c4d6fb706ef822315fb0280b2.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=326#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=326\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=326\",\"name\":\"What Americans Really Think in These Troubled Times - 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