I'm Alan Alder and this is Clear In Vivid, conversations about connecting and communicating.

You don't need much more evidence these days that our country is badly divided than to

toggle back and forth any evening between Fox News and MSNBC.

There are two perspectives on the same days of events that might be coming from two different

universes. We seem to become a nation of tribes.

We didn't set out on Clear In Vivid to explore this divide, but in our conversations about

connecting and communicating, the topic kept coming up from people as diverse as politicians,

comedians and psychologists. I heard not only possible reasons for the current tribalism,

but I also heard some possible solutions. Here's the former basketball hall of

Famer and US Senator Bill Bradley. When how things have changed in the Senate since

he last served there in 1997, is it a myth that in the old days they used to go out for

a beer afterwards and socialize and now they don't?

No, I don't think it's a myth. When I got there, for example, right off the Senate floor

in the Sergeant at Arms office was a room where you go in and, you know, Republicans and

Democrats have a drink in the late afternoon if you want one. There was a Senator's dining

room, one table Republican, one table Democrat, the same Senator's dining room. I think the

dining room is still there. I don't think the Sergeant at Arms afternoon high ball room

is there. But so tell me that again. That sounds interesting. I wouldn't expect that on

government property, the Sergeant at Arms serves high balls at five o'clock. He doesn't

serve him, but there's bottles laying around. Sometimes the rules are the bottle under the couch.

No, not really. This is where you sit down with somebody that would be Republican. How's

your wife? Your daughters in college. What is she doing? What's she studying her? You know,

...