The Big Middle: a digital town hall, live from Substack

The Big Middle is a Substack show built on a bet: Americans agree on more than they disagree on, and the loud edges hide it. Hosts Allan and Michallie wanted to test that live, on the topics everyone says are impossible to discuss. Two pilot sessions so far, the US-Iran conflict in May and the 2026 midterms in October on The Social Contract with Joe Walsh, both ran on Converge. We think of them as digital town halls.

How it works

The audience watches the livestream. A short link goes up on screen, and viewers are in a Converge session from any device, no account, anonymous from the first keystroke. Then, in about twenty-five minutes:

• Everyone answers at once. A background survey, then an open brainstorm.
• AI categorizes the room in seconds and shows the themes back before the next activity.
• The room votes on its own ideas. Pick the top five issues. Rate each rationale. Rank the outcomes.
• A consensus statement, before the stream ends. Drafted from the data and read back to the room. The report follows.

Same engine as a customer or employee listening session. The difference is the front door: a livestream audience instead of a recruited panel.

Session one: the Iran conflict

May 6, 2026. More than 75 watching; 22 came into Converge to respond.

The room leaned liberal, and average support for US military involvement was 3.81 out of 10. But ratings spanned the full scale from 1 to 10. Asked to rate the claim that “no legitimate justification exists” for engagement, the room gave it 2.50 out of 5, the lowest score of any statement on either side. People who opposed the war still saw a legitimate basis. They just didn’t think this was it.

The statement the room landed on:

Iran cannot be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons and its terrorism and proxy networks must be meaningfully curtailed — but the current US military engagement is widely viewed as an unjustified war of choice that should be wound down, not expanded. Keep firm pressure on Iran’s nuclear program and regional terrorism, minimize civilian and military casualties, reject ground troops or open-ended war, refuse to fight on behalf of other nations, and require a clearer last-resort threshold and credible justification before any further escalation.

Session two: the 2026 midterms

October 8, 2026. 27 participants.

Everyone who answered called 2026 “far more consequential” than most midterms, and the top issues were ICE and immigration enforcement (65%), cost of living (60%) and government corruption (60%). But the room agreed most on process, not outcome. Three results tied as the top positives at 57%: keeping the federal government out of elections, massive turnout, and acceptance of the results with less us-versus-them division. The clearest red line, at 75%: declaring an emergency or martial law to block elections.

The statement the room landed on:

Most Americans want a free and fair election with no interference or intimidation at the polls, massive turnout, and results everyone accepts, so leaders can get to work on affordability and accountability.

If Americans would actually listen to each other they would understand they are not as far apart as they think.

What these rooms were, and weren’t

Both were pilots with self-selected livestream audiences, and both rooms leaned liberal. The middle they found is the middle of those rooms, not a national sample. What’s notable is that a room leaning one way still produced ratings across the whole scale and still converged on process and shared red lines rather than a partisan outcome. A balanced room is the obvious next step, and it’s the kind of room we recruit for the Converge Leadership Forum.

The reports

Subscribe at thebigmiddle.substack.com to catch the next live session.

Town halls, all-hands, member meetings, public comment: anywhere an audience is already gathered to watch, and you’d rather know what all of them think than what the three people at the microphone think.