Moniz: We meet weekly for lunch and talk politics. We don’t always agree. But we’re always civil.

Our conversations began in the summer of 2016, a few months before Donald Trump was elected president. A friend who worked in IT at a Fortune 500 company said he wanted to start monthly breakfasts to talk politics, sports and current events. I joined Joe, the IT manager, and Jon, an EPA lawyer. We were neighbors with center-left political leanings, but all of us had voted across the aisle on occasion. Over the past six years, the group has grown in unexpected ways and moved well beyond the realm of a typical coffee klatch. Although two early members have moved away, we now meet weekly for lunch and, at the suggestion of Joe, our founder, the group now spans much of the U.S. political and geographical spectrum.