Stefan Padfield: Can ‘Focused Fighting’ Increase Unity?

“I believe there are many powerful people on both sides of the aisle who just want to make a positive difference in this world without having to endure a cancel culture struggle session every time they try to do so,” writes Free Enterprise Project Executive Director Stefan Padfield.

In the commentary below, Stefan outlines a four-point strategy he terms “Focused Fighting” that he hopes will encourage unity and bipartisanship in our increasingly divided nation.

We are arguably more divided than at any other time since the 1960s. One need look no further than the recent tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk to confirm this.

Stefan Padfield

Despite our divisions, “Focused Fighting” can increase unity and bipartisanship.

Focused Fighting rests on four propositions.

First, Focused Fighting respects the fact that the issues that divide us are serious and not going to be resolved simply by better understanding one another. Accordingly, it rejects utopian promises of a conflict-free nation.

Second, while the issues that divide us are legitimate, we go from difficult to impossible in terms of finding reasonable compromises when we demonize our opponents and distort their positions into straw men we can easily and self-righteously condemn. Accordingly, Focused Fighting encourages civil discourse not to eliminate all differences but to clarify them.

Third, despite the fact that legitimate differences divide us in myriad ways, it is simply impossible that there aren’t win-win projects both sides can agree and collaborate on. And if we commit to devoting some small portion of our time to finding and advancing such projects, we’ll not only make the world a better place directly through the intended outcomes of the project – but we’ll also restore some hope that we can live and work together without devolving into civil war.

Fourth, Focused Fighting requires compartmentalization. Things will not go well for us if we refuse to work with people who call us bad names or otherwise offend us. For example, I spend a large part of my time working on corporate shareholder proposals from a right-of-center perspective and I hereby commit to working with any leftist organization or individual on a joint shareholder proposal or other related project regardless of how many times they’ve called me every -ist or -ic in the book, and regardless of how many times they may do that going forward. At the same time, I expect them to understand that I will not stop calling out the evils of leftism as I see them. We are in fact capable of putting aside our differences long enough to have a positive impact on society in ways not possible if we refuse to take on discrete projects together. Think of this as the civil discourse version UFC fighters joining together to raise money for a good cause after punching each other in the face repeatedly – and planning to get back in the octagon shortly to do it some more.

Of course, the engagement and action called for by Focused Fighting will not be easy. Distrust and cynicism run deep. But we can rise above this negativity if we are willing to devote some meaningful time to clarify positions and find socially beneficial projects we can agree upon, whether that be in connection with reducing child labor, improving educational outcomes, or wherever else our engagement might take us.

I am not a negotiation expert so what I’m calling Focused Fighting may well be an already well-established process. But here’s what ChatGPT told me (in slightly edited form) when I asked it that question:

How does this compare to existing negotiation theories? The most obvious cousin is “principled negotiation,” made famous by Roger Fisher and William Ury’s Getting to Yes. Like Focused Fighting, principled negotiation emphasizes clarifying interests rather than positions, separating people from problems, and searching for mutual gain. But principled negotiation often assumes that with enough effort, agreement can be reached. Focused Fighting rejects that optimism: many conflicts are simply intractable, and pretending otherwise leads only to frustration. The goal is not consensus but coexistence.

Focused Fighting also overlaps with “integrative negotiation,” sometimes described as “win–win” bargaining. Integrative negotiators look for ways to expand the pie by finding creative trades that satisfy both sides. Focused Fighting borrows this instinct when it encourages limited collaboration on shared values. Yet the difference is stark: integrative negotiation tends to minimize the permanence of conflict, while Focused Fighting insists that some battles will never be settled to everyone’s complete satisfaction.

Interestingly, the theory also echoes insights from political philosophy, particularly Chantal Mouffe’s concept of “agonistic pluralism.” Mouffe argues that conflict is ineradicable in democracy; the challenge is not to eliminate it but to transform enemies into legitimate adversaries. Similarly, Focused Fighting embraces division as a permanent condition while insisting on respect and bounded struggle. The difference is that Focused Fighting translates these philosophical insights into a practical negotiation framework — one that can be applied in boardrooms, classrooms, legislatures, and communities.

Bottom line: I’ll happily give credit to whoever came up with the theory. What matters to me are results.

In conclusion, I believe there are many powerful people on both sides of the aisle who just want to make a positive difference in this world without having to endure a cancel culture struggle session every time they try to do so. Let’s commit to advancing those bipartisan projects. We can all use a bit more hope that unity is possible.