In divided times, what are speechwriters to do?

Here's a quote for speechwriters in divided times. 

And it comes from a speechwriter—Lucinda Holdforth, former Qantas speechwriter and conference chair of the 2019 Asia-Pacific Speechwriters Conference.

“Franz Kafka famously called the novel ‘an axe for the frozen sea within us,’” Holdforth says. “Great speeches are an axe for the frozen sea between us.” —DM