By John Deese
The past several years, and the time leading up to the last election, has created a divide in our country far wider than anything seen in my 40 years as a credit union executive. Because of my support for President Trump, I have been labeled a Nazi, non-Christian and numerous other things which are contrary to what I believe and my love for my country.
The most troubling has been the personal and business relationships that have ended because of this—including credit union relationships. I have tried reaching out to those people to ask why. But the response has been that if I believe this way, they will pass on a relationship with me. I tried unsuccessfully to explain that I didn’t like many of the presidents in my lifetime. but that I respected the office and also respected my friends and business associates that supported that president. Never in a million years would I have considered abandoning lifetime relationships because of political beliefs or support.
The Dream of Economic Democracy
What does this mean for us as credit union members and employees? For starters, we are in the middle of a cold civil war, just as brutal as the real war of Covid. As members of a financial cooperative, we are part of a family that often disagrees but stays together as a family, especially during hard times. We owe it to ourselves and our members to respect those with differing viewpoints.
And, if we want to be a beacon of hope by providing economic democracy to low-income Americans, we need to be true to the credit union dream of offering financial services to every American that walks through our door. We can’t afford to end business and personal relationships due to politics.
I believe that social media has played an outsized role in this process. Social media, unfortunately, allows you to say hateful and disrespectful speech. Most of what is communicated on these platforms wouldn’t be said in person. It’s akin to a driver giving you the finger for changing lanes; a gesture that wouldn’t be given in person. But somehow the social media outlet makes people say things that are inappropriate and don’t reflect what would be shared by a responsible and respectful person.
I now regret that I have fallen victim to the social media trap and said things that were better left unsaid.
The other side of this dilemma has been that the massive amount of media saturation that adds fuel to the fire on both sides of the political aisle. It is amazing how you can read the same news story on two different media sites and come away with different perspectives. And when it comes to political views, the differences can create fear, hatred and information to use against anyone that doesn’t agree with your point of view.
A Dinner Party’s Political Divide
I still feel it is a person’s obligation to walk the walk and say what you believe. What happened to a respectful “agree to disagree” or, even more important, the fact that discussing our differences in a respectful and courteous manner?
Several weeks ago I had an encounter that emphasized the importance of why this needs to happen. I was at a dinner party with six people and I was fully aware there was a political divide. The evening was pleasant but when the political subject was broached one of the ladies immediately said she didn’t want to have that discussion even though she is the one that started the conversation.
My spouse immediately asked why is it OK for you to make your comments and then you want to close down the conversation? For the next 30 minutes we had a respectful and meaningful conversation, which I felt left all of us with a good perspective of our differences. But the amazing thing is that it also demonstrated that on most of the issues we were all on the same page. Our approaches may be different but in the end we all wanted the same thing.
The next morning the lady that started—but didn’t want to have the conversation—sent me a text message: “There are conversations you haven’t had and stories that need to be unraveled. If we dare to have the difficult conversations in our backyard, in our offices and in our families, miracles happen.” This message brought great hope to me that there might be an opportunity to work through this horrible situation in our country.
A Friend with Differing Views
The other development through this ordeal has been the discussions I have had with a lifetime friend. We are on different ends of the political spectrum—he veers toward the left and I towards the right—but we have both had respectful exchanges about the political climate. He has labeled this development in our country as a “cold civil war”,” which is an accurate description of today’s political climate.
I know my friend views things differently, but he is still my friend and I expect we will remain friends until the day that one of us leaves this earth. Will we ever see everything exactly the same? No, that goes without question. But it doesn’t matter because I know he is a good person, with a good heart and a love for our country. He doesn’t bash the things that I believe and I reciprocate because as friends we respect each other.
Most days I wonder if we can ever come together again? I’m not sure but if we don’t at least try it will never happen. Unfortunately, I think many of the damaged relationships are probably too broken to fix, but I am hoping through mutual respect, open communication and common love for our credit unions and our country we can work on salvaging the relationships we still have and hopefully will have in the future.
John Deese is president/CEO of Guardians Credit Union in West Palm Beach, Fla.