I recorded this conversation with the Hon. Tony Coelho, principal author of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), on August 12, 2025. More than a month has passed since then. In that short time, headlines have piled up, tempers have flared, and our national mood has felt tight and tired. As this episode goes live, Washington is again in a funding stalemate and the air around health care policy is charged. I’m not here to take a partisan victory lap or assign blame. I’m here to offer something steadier: perspective, history, and a path that welcomes most Americans who feel, like I do, that the truth usually lives in the middle.

Over the last ten days I gave my “Heart of Inclusion” talk in two places that pundits love to frame as opposites: Shreveport, Louisiana, hometown of the Speaker of the House, and Portland, Oregon, a city often spotlighted in national debates about protest and public safety. The receptions in both rooms were the same: real, generous, loud applause. Different zip codes, different news narratives, same humanity. That experience reminded me that most people—across faiths, identities, and politics—want dignity, safety, opportunity, and the freedom to live our lives fully. We are better than the loudest voices telling us we have nothing in common.

That conviction sits at the heart of this episode. The ADA did not pass because one party won and the other lost. It passed because people with radically different viewpoints decided that access and dignity were values big enough to stand on together. Tony Coelho’s story is not about the erasure of disagreement. It’s about the discipline to keep showing up, listening across the aisle, and building coalitions around a common good.

Here’s what this conversation offers in a moment like ours:

• History as a guide, not a weapon. If we don’t learn from our past, we repeat it. The ADA’s road teaches us that storytelling plus coalition-building can turn fear into policy rooted in dignity.
• Opportunity over assumptions. “Give me the chance to try,” Tony reminds us. That simple invitation—opportunity—changes lives, businesses, and communities.
• Rights plus enforcement equals reality. Paper promises only matter when they’re carried out fairly and consistently.
• The center still holds. Most Americans want practical, human answers and are weary of being told they must pick a team before they’re allowed to care.

I am releasing this episode with a very personal hope: that we resist the urge to tune out precisely when we are needed most. There is so much fear and pressure in our public square right now. The volume and velocity of rhetoric on all sides can harden us. It can convince us that our neighbors are enemies and that progress is impossible. But the last ten days have shown me something different. People are good. When we create space to listen, they show up with open hearts.

So this is my invitation:

• Listen together. Play this episode at your kitchen table, in your workplace, in your classroom, in community spaces, in civic halls. Invite people who see the world differently to join you.
• Name the shared values first. Dignity. Access. Opportunity. Safety. Freedom. We can disagree on tactics while holding tight to those constants.
• Ask what you can build, not just what you can block. The ADA was built by people who chose construction over destruction, progress over points scored.
• Lead where you live. Whether you’re a neighbor, a teacher, a faith leader, a business owner, or an elected official, your voice can lower the temperature and widen the circle.

I believe most of America is in this middle space with me. Not a mushy middle that stands for nothing, but a principled middle that insists we can be both brave and kind, both honest and inclusive, both pragmatic and visionary. That’s the spirit that animated the ADA, and it is the spirit we need now.

We do not have to agree on everything to agree on this: every one of us benefits when barriers come down and everyone gets a fair shot to try, to stumble, to learn, and to succeed. That is not a left or right idea. That is an American idea—one we’ve fought for together across generations.

If you’re exhausted by the finger-pointing and the censoring from any side, let this episode be a reset button. Let it remind us that we have crossed harder bridges before by walking toward each other. Let it be a small act of courage to listen with the intent to understand and to act with the intent to include.