Midway through an 11-mile whitewater rafting trip on the Lehigh River, Scott Shigeoka wondered how he’d been programmed to think Republicans don’t care about conservation.
"I'm trying to understand,” he said while sitting on top of a "lunch rock" that slants out of the river in the Lehigh Gorge State Park.
Shigeoka, from Los Angeles by way of Hawaii, was talking to an unlikely lunch-partner, Pennsylvania state Sen. Dave Argall, a Republican and lifelong Schuylkill County native.
The two men with two totally different backgrounds and experiences and from different generations ate sandwiches, chips and cookies midway through RAFT (Reuniting America by Fostering Trust) for America’s first float of the season.
They were joined by around 25 other participants who ranged from a DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipient and an economics professor to former and current mayors and a person who works in agriculture.
Ken Powley is a retired guide who has owned Whitewater Challengers in Weatherly for nearly five decades. In 2021, Powley, who falls more on the conservative end of the spectrum, and fellow guide Chris Newlon, who is more liberal, attended the American Democracy Summit in California.
They were inspired to start the nonprofit Team Democracy.
"As Americans, despite all of our differences, we really should try to think and talk and act as if we're all in the same boat together, because we really are," he said.
Powley and Newlon have a combined 100 years of whitewater rafting guide experience. They’ve literally been in the same boat with many people of many backgrounds over many years.
"We both thought what a cool thing it would be to take people with really different political perspectives and orientations and literally pair them up in a boat for a day, where they need to work together to successfully navigate the challenging rapids," he said, "and that paves the way for successfully navigating the difficult conversations that we find it harder and harder to have as Americans.”
People apply to be part of the program. There is a rigorous interview process.
The first season of RAFT for America, a program of Team Democracy, was in 2024. This season kicked off on the Lehigh on June 7. The next stops is Aug. 16 on the Nantahala River in North Carolina.
Conversations were set to focus on jobs, taxes and inflation. But as the river changed, so did the topics.
In the same boat, literally and figuratively
Powley said the country is polarized. Changing that, he said, will not be driven by Washington, D.C. — but rather, by literally putting people in the same boat and making them work together to navigate rapids and contentious conversation.
Powley wants people talking about politics, religion and money.
"I'm sure every one of us over the last 10 years has been in a conversation that went south or been afraid to get into a conversation because what the pushback might be, and we need to get beyond that," he said. "We're just thrilled that you're here and happy to be a part of this.”
He was speaking to the roughly 25 participants and guides beneath a pavilion from the bench of a picnic table with an American flag tablecloth.
Give everyone 'grace'
The day started early and had a structure. Participants were first paired off into twos. They had only a few minutes to learn about each other and their reason for coming out to the river. Then they had to speak for one another.
"I'm Jen," Shigeoka said. "And I have felt a lot of my relationships and my friendships and my family be really impacted by the political divide, so I'm here to explore that and have fun."
Before the guides fitted the paddlers with life vests and boarded school buses to the launch point in the state park, Kristi Kendall, a Team Democracy board member, gave some advice.
"There's two things you have to fight: one is that instinct to hold it in, right? The other is the instinct to judge someone when they say something that you don't agree with," she said "One of the things that we're encouraging you to do through this setup here today is to give everybody a lot of grace.”
She asked if anyone had any last thoughts before the three-hour trip down the river.
Tom Marino from Bucks County said he enjoys talking politics, but now he’s intimidated by those conversations.
"Over the past few years I've been kind of conditioned to really guard myself, and so I don't know about others, but even just talking to people that I know are here for that, it's still really weird," he said.
Wayne Codner is the mayor of Richlandtown Borough in upper Bucks County. He said in his role, he has to speak with different people with different experiences.
"The only way America can be destroyed, if it's destroyed from within with division. This type of thing is the counterbalance to that action," he said.
'If you paddle together, we actually go places'
The first opportunity to work together came at the concrete ledge of the launch point.
The ledge drops off pretty fast, guide Jere Downs told the crew in Raft 1, which included Argall, Marino and Newlon.
"You want the raft to be all the way in the water before you get in, otherwise you'll just be stuck,” Downs said.
Downs gave the crew a count of three to lift the heavy red inflatable raft into the river. The water was cold and knee high. She directed the passengers where to sit to balance the weight of the craft. Everyone grabbed a paddle.
The first challenge was to steer to the left side of a bridge.
“If you paddle together, we actually go places,” Downs said.
The conversation started naturally with the history of the river and whitewater rafting on it, while Downs directed the crew to paddle forward or backwards.
In between chats about coal mining in Schuylkill County, fracking for natural gas, data centers, loyalty to political parties and open primaries, the crew navigated the rapids.
Sometimes the conversation continued through the river’s challenges, but not always.
"The river's going to interrupt us for a moment. If you look straight ahead, there's an island, and actually, we're going to go left, and we call it Z-turn," she said of the rapid that requires precise navigation.
The crew always worked together. Downs was impressed.
To get the conversations focused each boat had a designated member to ask pointed questions. Newlon was that person in Raft 1.
“Have you ever felt misunderstood in a political discussion? How?” Newlon asked.
Argall laughed.
"It's like I'm an Eagles fan. If anyone cheers for Dallas, I'm like, ‘F- them’, you know?" Marino said. "I kind of feel like politics became that way.”
By the time the crew hit the rock for lunch, everyone was wet and in good spirits.
Sandwiches and more conversation
On lunch rock, Jerry McAward, from the Lehighton Outdoor Center, said he was satisfied with his rafts conversation.
"We've had a really healthy discussion, and a lot of, I think, a lot of respect, and but the differing opinions," he said.
Kendall again paired everyone off into different groups for lunch. That’s when Shigeoka met Argall.
Before he was a state senator, Argall was a state representative. He said the Sierra Club fought against a bill he had in the state house to clean up 27 million scrap tires. The club didn’t like that the tires would be burned for fuel.
"So in my mind, I was cleaning up this problem, creating electricity, figuring out this problem, but they just didn't like it around fossil fuels, right?" Argall said. "They didn't have another answer."
He stressed that Republicans don’t want children falling into old strip mines or orange water that is tainted from acid mine drainage.
"We have to see our interdependence, right? Even if it's not affecting us, we have to hopefully care for the people in the two counties down," Shigeoka said.
Nearing the end
After lunch and in another raft, conversations ranged from funding schools to birding.
A former mayor from Colorado and John Zangari, who is running to represent Pennsylvania House District 171, talked about how government isn’t working for the people.
That’s before the raft hit the last three rapids of the float — named Larry, Curly and Moe.
"Our whole system isn't working, like you should. It doesn't matter ... your state rep could be horrible, and you should still be getting good roads, that's how government should work, that's in my opinion,” Zangari said.
Towards the end of the 11-mile float, the crew had established a rapport and inside jokes. After a success, whether that be on the river or in the boat, they lifted their paddles up and clapped them together. They also cheered on a fellow boater who caught a trout from the river.
Land ho'
Back at the campground, the crew all knew each other better. They changed out of wet clothes for the last half of the day, a cookout and continued conversation.
Nish Barot lives in State College. He’s a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — known as DACA. He's waiting on a Texas judge to decide the fate of the program.
Barot came to the United States from India when he was 3 years old. He finds himself caught between worlds.
He identifies as a left-leaning Democrat.
"I think that really stems from, you know, my experiences and narratives growing up in you know this convoluted immigration system,” he said back at the campground.
He joined RAFT to understand other people's perspectives on a wide array of issues, including immigration. He also hoped people learned from his perspective.
Barot can’t swim. That’s the only reason he was nervous to get on the boat.
“I just really wanted to get my story out, and I felt almost like a burden off my shoulders because everybody was so interested in DACA,” he said.
One of his crew mates told him: “when I speak to an immigration attorney, now … I know that Nish is going through this, so I can speak about it from his perspective because I learned that today.”
"If they run into another dreamer in the future, if they see it on the news, now … they're alert to it because they know somebody that's going through that system right now,” he said.
Jen Viguers lives in Ardmore. She's left-leaning but agrees with President Donald Trump’s support for Israel. That has caused friction in her relationships.
"I have a friend, a family member who said 'if you're not going to support me against Trump on this one issue, then ... I'm not going to be friendly with you,'" she said. "So I wanted to see how other people handle these conflicts with family members and friends.”
Viguers said after the float she feels reassured that people can state their position without being offensive to others.
Shigeoka pulled up the event in his Curiosity Mobile. He was nearing the end of a six-month cross-country storytelling project where he searched for people who are making a difference in their communities.
He said the journey down the river was fun and positive.
“It's the power of relationships, of us coming together, and you don't even have to talk about the moments that make us different. We just have to recognize our humanity and be on the water together," he said.
The rafting trip is a great metaphor, he said.
"For what waters we're going through right now, it is so on the nose,” Shigeoka said. “I just, I feel more hopeful, and I feel like I have new connections with people who are very different from me.”
