The Harwood Institute used 16 focus groups to conduct this study providing people with the opportunity to think about various issues and topics over the course of a discussion lasting a couple hours, to talk about their views and feelings in their own words, and to describe the underlying assumptions behind their views. Each focus group comprised approximately 10 to 18 people, representing a cross-section of age, race, income, education and party affiliation. The participants were recruited by local organizations such as public libraries, community foundations, United Ways, committed individuals, a local public media organization, a museum, and a youth organization, among others. To ensure that we engaged a diverse group of communities and people in this study, The Harwood Institute forged a relationship with the American Communities Project (ACP), a combined social science/journalism effort based at the Michigan State University School of Journalism. Working with academics, ACP used a wide range of different factors —everything from income to race and ethnicity to education to religious affiliation—and a clustering technique to identify 15 types of counties across the nation. The Harwood Institute used ACP to conduct conversations in each of the 15 types of counties in the US. Two focus groups were held in rural middle American type counties to ensure rural voices were clearly understood and represented. These conversations were held during 2021. Focus groups were held in the following counties: Fairfield (CT), Utah (Utah), Sarasota (Florida), Lane (Oregon), Fresno (California), Mesa (Colorado), Spartanburg (South Carolina), Lancaster (Nebraska), Kent (Delaware), Beadle (South Dakota), Harris (Texas), Orleans (Louisiana), McKinley (New Mexico), Ross (Ohio), Genesee (Michigan) and Rawlins (Kansas).