Thoughts on more Civil Discourse in Politics by David Reel

Following World War II, Winston Churchill was facing two daunting political and governing challenges in pivoting from serving as a war time to a post war time leader of Britain. 

The first challenge was how Britain should deal with Germany, whose leaders were ruthless adversaries who inflicted massive amounts of death, pain, and suffering on Britain during a six-year war; including bombing raids on London that killed and injured innocent civilians. The second challenge was how Britain should deal with the Soviet Union whose leaders were key allies during that same war, but post war; those same leaders were pursuing, maintaining, and expanding the Soviet Union’s spheres of influence and their communist ideology worldwide.

Churchill’s guiding principle forward was pragmatic. In a VUCA world, a world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, he would not expect permanent allies or permanent adversaries. He would pursue permanent interests.

Recently, two U.S. Senators from Pennsylvania embraced Churchill’s guiding principle in American politics in a relatively small, but very instructive way. What makes this instructive is these two Senators have deeply held and stark differences in their political allegiances and political philosophies. 

John Fetterman is a left of center Democratic Senator who was endorsed by Bernie Sanders in his successful Senate primary election campaign and his successful general election campaign. 

In the 2024 Presidential election, Fetterman strongly supported Joe Biden’s re-election and strongly defended Biden when there were widespread calls for him to withdraw from the race.

When Biden did withdraw and was replaced by Kamala Harris as the Democratic standard bearer, Fetterman endorsed her and campaigned for her throughout Pennsylvania.

David McCormick is a right of center Republican Senator who was endorsed by Donald Trump in his successful Senate primary campaign and his successful general election campaign.

In McCormick’s challenge to Pennsylvania’s then incumbent left of center Democratic Senator Robert Casey, Fetterman endorsed Casey and campaigned for him. 

Since those elections, their differences have not stopped the two Senators working together on select issues of shared interest, shared thinking, and mutual respect. 

One example is the role of mentorships in changing lives.

Both McCormick and Fetterman have a deep commitment to mentoring based on their respective firsthand experiences.

While in college, Fetterman’s best friend died in a car accident. Immediately following that tragedy, Fetterman volunteered to be a mentor for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America. He was assigned to an eight-year-old boy whose father had died from AIDS and whose mother was dying from cancer. Fetterman promised the boy’s mother he would continue to be his mentor after her death. 

In high school, McCormick was a mediocre bench warmer on the football team. A new coach saw promise in him, mentored him, and made McCormick one of the team’s co-captains. That experience helped McCormick boost his low self-confidence and graduate from West Point.

During the Covid pandemic, McCormick and his wife, Dina Powell McCormick, concluded that too many Americans, including their six daughters, suffered greatly from a lack of mentors.

As a result, they co – authored Who Believed in You? a book that includes interviews with successful leaders who had a mentor who saw something in them they may not have seen in themselves and helped them find and achieve their purpose in life.

Those interviewed include Governor Wes Moore, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Tory Burch, chief creative fashion designer and executive chairperson of Tory Burch LLC, as well as founder of the Tory Burch foundation, Hollywood producer Brian Grazer, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

As a result of their mutual appreciation of the value of mentoring, McCormick, Fetterman, and their spouses (both of whom also have personal positive mentoring stories to share), agreed to three events where they would discuss their experiences and promote Who Believed in You?

McCormick, Fetterman, and their spouses also met for a dinner, a most effective way for people to get to know, understand, and respect each other. Following that dinner McCormick said “I trust him. I think he’s a very authentic guy. I think he’s going to be a good partner.”

Sadly, the first two of the mentoring events were postponed due to “unforeseen logistical issues” and the third event was cancelled due to a “scheduling conflict.” I believe the reasons were concerns over peaceful outcomes from protests before, during, or after the events. 

This is a prime example of how a tyranny of the loud is regularly disrupting much needed efforts to advance the cause of civil political discourse in our society.

This unexpected turn of events is also a call to action for elected officials and citizens in our community, our region, our state, and our country to commit to doing two things.

We can, and we must replicate the actions of two U.S. Senators with efforts to get to know, understand, trust, respect, and seek common ground with others who have opposite political affiliations and opposite views on many local, state, and national public policy issues. 

More importantly, we can, and we must commit to maintaining a permanent interest on civil and respectful dialogue, which will help us coexist in a society where even when we have inevitable disagreements on a wide range of public policy issues, we can disagree without being disagreeable.

David Reel is a public affairs and public relations consultant in Easton.