FREDERICK, Md. (AP) \u2014 She fired up her laptop to scour the internet for bits from right-wing websites and conspiratorial YouTube channels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The inauguration of Joe Biden was just days away, and Natalie Abbas was feverishly searching for 11th-hour interventions that could prevent the swearing-in of a president she\u2019ll likely never accept. She sent a video to her friend and political sparring partner, Jim Carpenter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Five miles across town, the local newspaper was on Carpenter\u2019s sofa and The Washington Post on his doorstep. When he clicked on Abbas\u2019 link, his jaw dropped and his white eyebrows darted up and down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is nonsense,\u201d he said, shaking his head. Then he laughed so hard he bent at the belly and slapped his knee. \u201cIt\u2019s really nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abbas and Carpenter are local ambassadors for a program designed to bridge the nation\u2019s extraordinary political divide, and the gulf between them is about as wide as one gets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carpenter is a 73-year-old retired statistician who believes what dozens of courts have found: Biden is the rightful winner. Abbas, 59, says her conviction that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump is as strong as her belief in God. Together, they ponder the greatest challenge facing Biden and American society: how can they find common ground if they no longer exist in the same reality?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They don\u2019t agree on basic facts. They don\u2019t even share a vocabulary. They use the same words \u2014 truth, proof, patriotism \u2014 but they don\u2019t mean the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this sick and scared country, many have retreated to their bubbles, surrounding themselves with people certain the other side is their enemy \u2014 inhuman, un-American. Polls show roughly two-thirds of Republicans express doubts about the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So Carpenter and Abbas decided to navigate one of the tensest weeks in American memory together, as the Trump administration ended and Biden\u2019s began. Abbas, who flirts with the QAnon conspiracy theory that a cabal of child-killing pedophiles runs the world, still desperately wanted to believe it wouldn\u2019t happen. Carpenter could barely wait for the new president, one he believes is a man of character capable of leading the country off this dark and dangerous path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople are getting threatened on both sides,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople are going berserk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s crazy,\u201d Abbas replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo tell them to stop. Can you tell them to stop?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCan you tell your people to stop?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They both sighed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think we can lead by example?\u201d Abbas offered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carpenter nodded. He\u2019d written himself a personal mission statement that to him seems as true as any mathematical equation: \u201ccreate a world of connection and respect by seeing the light in the eyes of others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhere is the light?\u201d Carpenter said. \u201cI\u2019ve got to find it somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
____<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They are surrounded by reminders of what happens when Americans turn against one other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Frederick County, right on the Mason-Dixon Line, is called the \u201ccrossroads of the Civil War.\u201d On the bloodiest day in American history, Sept. 17, 1862, 23,000 bodies fell just 25 miles from downtown Frederick at the Antietam National Battlefield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Memorials stand all over the county: \u201cTheir struggle to preserve the union must never be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The county is now reflective of the nation\u2019s political mood. Frederick County\u2019s 2020 vote mirrored the national popular vote: 53.3 percent chose Biden. And the political hostility bubbled over here, too: police investigated a letter threatening Biden supporters, campaign signs were torn out of lawns, and local partisans use words like \u201cimmoral\u201d to describe their opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So Carpenter and Abbas, who hadn\u2019t seen each other in months because of COVID-19 restrictions, sat down a few days before the inauguration in the lobby of his retirement community. An hour away, thousands of National Guard troops were fortifying Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The week before, on Jan. 6, Trump\u2019s supporters had stormed the Capitol building at his urging, chanting \u201cstop the steal\u201d and threatening the lives of lawmakers while Americans watched in real time on TV. Abbas was at the rally, though she was not part of the siege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat do you mean the election was stolen? How was it stolen?\u201d Carpenter asked her. He called Trump\u2019s claims \u2019the big lie\u201d that led to rebellion. She gasped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They are part of a national initiative called Braver Angels, inspired by a passage in President Abraham Lincoln\u2019s inaugural address in 1861, when he appealed to the \u201cbetter angels of our nature\u201d as the country was tearing itself apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bill Doherty, a marriage therapist in Minnesota, started the group just after Trump\u2019s election in 2016 because he thought the nation was edging toward a \u201ccivic divorce.\u201d He\u2019d sat across from warring couples, and learned that when they retreat to separate worlds, the marriage crumbles. On Facebook, he watched people say things like \u201cif you don\u2019t agree, unfriend me.\u201d The tribal bunkers were being built before his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the riot, Braver Angels scrambled together an online program and 4,500 tuned in. That is what gives Doherty hope: the first step in fixing a marriage is recognizing it\u2019s in trouble, he said, and the only thing both sides seem to agree on is that the country is staring into an abyss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That shared fear brought Carpenter and Abbas together. He learned of the program and decided to start up a Frederick County version. When he searched for a Republican counterpart, Abbas raised her hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They hosted workshops in libraries and their partnership appeared on the front page of the local newspaper. Neither expected to convert the other, but both believed that trying to understand the other side was the only way to prevent the country from splintering irrevocably apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was intrigued by her fearlessness, and how she could rattle off what she called evidence to support her claims. Carpenter delighted in having a window into a different world view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI just breathe deep and say, OK,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t have to believe her. But I know that\u2019s her reality. And I have to accept that because there are a lot of people with her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His mother was a Jehovah\u2019s Witness, and he came to believe that blind faith can lead to magical thinking and fevered prophecies. Politics has become like religion, he thinks, where people like Abbas hold unprovable yet impenetrable beliefs. His father was an atheist and psychology professor, and he spent years searching unsuccessfully for ways to blend those worldviews together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abbas unspooled for him the election fraud arguments and rumors that she dug from the internet: dead voters, rigged machines, an Italian satellite, Rudy Giuliani\u2019s promises, corrupt courts. The headline streaming on the television behind them read \u201cTrump\u2019s final days,\u201d but she still hoped it wasn\u2019t over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWoof,\u201d Carpenter sometimes interjected, \u201cthis is a little hard to believe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a really good guy,\u201d Abbas said. \u201cHe gets cranky once in a while.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the age,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He squinted behind his wire-rimmed glasses, a pen in the front pocket of his button-up shirt. She is bubbly and youthful, in a pink leather jacket, skinny jeans and kitten heels, her long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLove ya,\u201d Abbas said as she left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
____<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few days later, Abbas sat at her kitchen table with a legal pad, two computers and two televisions on, one switched to uber-conservative Newsmax and the other to Fox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLeft Wing Hypocrisy Surrounds Violence in U.S.,\u201d screamed the headline as footage of the Jan. 6 siege splashed across the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She scrolled through her Twitter feed, pausing on a story from her favorite source, the far-right Epoch Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was four o\u2019clock, the end of Abbas\u2019s workday as a paralegal investigator for a government contractor. In the evenings she turns her attention to being a \u201cdigital soldier\u201d in an army searching for tidbits to prove that Trump is the rightful victor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a fight for good and evil,\u201d she believes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her path to politics was personal. When her daughter became addicted to opioids, she began advocating for policy change and took a leadership position in a local Republican club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She saw systems fail those most vulnerable, and her faith in the standard truth-bearers of American democracy \u2014 courts, Congress, the media \u2014 eroded. She felt she could trust nothing but believe anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now she thinks even mainstream conservative sources like Fox News aren\u2019t telling the whole truth, especially since the network reported Biden\u2019s victory. So she looks elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If she were alone in her thinking, she might have felt she was \u201cin no man\u2019s land all by myself.\u201d But there is so much conspiratorial material, she says, and so many others on this road with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSometimes you feel like, gee, am I crazy?\u201d she said. \u201cWe know we\u2019re not insane, but our world has become very chaotic and we\u2019re just trying to sort it out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the days leading up to Biden\u2019s inauguration, Abbas fielded frenzied texts and calls from a close-knit group, each searching for proof that Trump would remain in the White House. As the hours ticked by, one friend grew increasingly panicked. Another called with a wild rumor about a last-minute military intervention that needed investigating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou need to get on it,\u201d he told Abbas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m on it,\u201d she said, clicking open a private search engine, because she doesn\u2019t trust traditional ones not to filter results or track her keystrokes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abbas\u2019s metric for discerning truth relies in part on intuition and faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen I speak truth or I see something, I get goosebumps,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a guide from God that I feel maybe I\u2019m on the right track.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abbas grabbed the remote to switch on a video in which an unseen narrator described a vast global conspiracy of intertwined elitist villains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf Jim were here, he\u2019d have his head in his hands,\u201d she said with a laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
____<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carpenter’s phone beeped with a message from Abbas. She thought she was delivering proof: A fake map ricocheting around social media showing Trump winning nearly every state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhy we claim a win,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCalifornia red?\u201d Carpenter shot back. \u201cDoesn\u2019t pass the sniff test.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They don\u2019t agree on much, though both believe in the importance of integrity in elections and media. But their definitions of integrity differ. They\u2019ve run across this problem with many words \u2014 riot, protest, sedition, treason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThose are landmines, aren\u2019t they?\u201d Carpenter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abbas suggested they decide on a glossary, so that they actually speak the same language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Outside of their friendship, most of the people they know think and talk like they do. Abbas said her friends have warned that the liberals won\u2019t listen to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have been asked, \u2018what are you doing? What do you think you\u2019re going to gain out of that?\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carpenter\u2019s wife, Letty, is a devoted Democrat and gasps when she overhears the videos Abbas has sent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m not personally sure where it\u2019s going to go,\u201d she said. \u201cTwo people talking across the political divide. How much can they accomplish when the problem, when you step back, is so big?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
___<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He poured Abbas a Blue Moon and himself a bourbon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI might need a tequila,\u201d she said as she arrived to watch the inauguration in Carpenter\u2019s living room, where the television was tuned to a broadcast station so there would be no squabbling over choosing a channel. She wore a red sweater. He wore a blue button-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They settled into their seats and clinked glasses as Chief Justice John Roberts took the stage. Biden put his hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo I have to ask you a question,\u201d Carpenter said. \u201cIs he president now?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell, he thinks he is,\u201d Abbas replied. \u201cAnd so do a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut is he?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNot legitimately in my opinion,\u201d Abbas replied. Her phone buzzed with messages from friends. They were puzzling together over how the inauguration might still be scrapped, theories involving military tribunals, court challenges, mass arrests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carpenter pressed her to connect the dots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can\u2019t quite grasp how that would work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his address, Biden spoke of building a more perfect union. Unity. Unity. He said the word eight times. He acknowledged some might call its pursuit \u201ca foolish fantasy.\u201d He conjured Lincoln, and the same words that had inspired the Braver Angels program: \u201cour better angels have always prevailed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDid you get goosebumps? I got goosebumps,\u201d Abbas said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMe too,\u201d Carpenter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He rocked in his chair, turning to her and smiling occasionally. He leaned toward the TV. He\u2019s been losing his vision and Abbas worried he couldn\u2019t see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She sat stoically but was frustrated. Biden spoke of togetherness, but in her mind, the Democratic party had always demonized Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDo you think he was attacked at day one?\u201d she asked Carpenter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People hated him, Carpenter agreed, and his voice raised to a shout: \u201cIt\u2019s his own damn fault for being such an asshole as a person!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abbas called it \u201cshallow\u201d to fixate on his personality, not his policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGet over it!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then they caught their tempers flaring. They laughed, and sighed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They both hummed along to Amazing Grace. Carpenter pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He asked Abbas how her daughter has been faring. She asked after his \u201clovely wife.\u201d Their homes each have balconies overlooking the mountains; he\u2019s lending her a telescope so she can watch the birds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTake care, my dear,\u201d she said as she left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They have come to see each other as friends, not enemies. They wonder: could that be enough?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
___<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Associated Press journalist Hannah Fingerhut contributed from Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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