An Invitation to Disillusioned Republicans

 

Earlier this month, I did my civic duty and attended my neighborhood caucus, a bizarre system some states (such as Utah) insist on retaining, primarily so that the extremist minority can control which candidates go on to the final election. Of course, in Utah that means the caucuses control who wins the final election, because Utah is a deeply red state. More on that in a minute.

My wife, normally an unaffiliated voter, registered Republican this year so that she could vote for Nikki Haley, and so she attended the Republican caucus. I am registered as a Democrat, and I refuse to have anything to do with the Republican Party, so I didn’t change my party affiliation in order to vote in the closed Republican primary, held at various caucus locations. The stories that have been published about how loosely the voting was handled at the GOP caucuses makes you wonder how a party so distraught over potential voter fraud (and unable to find any) could possibly organize an election so open to fraud and miscounting (intentional or not). Of course they didn’t investigate themselves, which might have been a good idea. But that’s another story.

Because Utah is Utah, my caucus was not held in my neighborhood. There was one big caucus for all Utah County Democrats held in an elementary school in northern Lehi, about a twenty-minute drive from my house. I dutifully showed up and sat in a half-filled cafeteria, where we did not cast votes for Joe Biden or any other Democratic presidential candidates. We had already done that by mail, a proven and very secure form of voting. Anyway, after a few introductory instructions, we were divided up by city into smaller groups. My Orem group was then further divided into individual precincts. As fate would have it, I was the only person in attendance from Orem precinct 305. Lucky me. Without holding a vote, I became precinct chair and also became a delegate to the county and state conventions. Now, I know a few Democrats in my precinct, but they apparently had other pressing matters that evening—perhaps a gripping episode of the Golden Bachelor or returning an overdue book to the library. Or maybe they had to work. Whatever the case, I was alone.

Today (March 23), I attended the county convention, another cozy affair, where we heard short speeches from various state and district and school board candidates. This time, one of my neighbors attended with me, so I wasn’t alone from my precinct.

But since I am now a very minor official of sorts in my party, I feel it is my obligation to do a little unofficial recruiting. If you are unaffiliated, you can probably stop reading now. But if you are a registered Republican and are a bit uncomfortable with what your party has become, I have a few questions for you.

1. Do you wonder what has become of the party of Reagan? As far as I can tell, the only thing left is Reagan’s worst idea: tax cuts for the wealthy. Tax cuts never pay for themselves, and that was true of the Reagan cuts, as well as the Bush and Trump cuts that came after. All they gave us was rampant economic inequality and runaway federal debt. If Reagan could see the GOP today, he would be disgusted. “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” has morphed into Trump’s invitation to Putin and any others who want to invade NATO countries “to do whatever the hell they want.”

2. Does it bother you at least a little that the party that used to tout “family values” has been completely taken over by a man found guilty of rape, who has bragged about sexual assault, who has cheated on three wives (and then paid hush money to one to keep this knowledge from the voters), who has been found guilty of fraud and has been indicted by four different grand juries for a variety of crimes, who offended our allies and fawned over brutal dictators (Trump has a severe case of Putin envy), and who (according to members of his own staff and cabinet) should never be allowed near power again? Trump has tried to walk back his recent claim that “if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath,” but his rhetoric has always threatened or encouraged violence, and it is only getting worse. Do you remember January 6, 2021? Do you remember what really happened, not the whitewashed version Fox News and the GOP have tried to sell?

3. Are you bothered at all by the sheer hypocrisy of your party withholding desperately needed aid to Ukraine until a bill is passed to address our southern border woes . . . and then, when a bipartisan group of senators came up with that bill, Trump puppet Mike Johnson refused to allow the House to vote on it, all so Trump can use immigration as a campaign issue? This shows that the Republican Party does not really care about solving our border problems and has become the Pro-Putin Party. Like it or not, if you are a Republican, you are supporting what the party does. And if you keep voting for Trump and his enablers (yes, that includes every Utah representative in the House and Mike Lee in the Senate), you are voting to allow Putin to take Ukraine.

4. Does it concern you that your party has become the party of science denial (global warming, vaccines, environmental protection); conspiracy theories (everything from bogus voter fraud to the “deep state”); divisive culture wars (book banning, teaching watered-down history in schools, anti-trans and -LGBTQ laws, etc.); and Christian nationalism (which is unconstitutional in a number of ways)?

5. If you live in Utah, are you troubled by a Republican legislature that consistently ignores the will of the voters, gerrymanders itself into a supermajority, and passes a bevy of privacy laws that hide government deliberations and actions from the people who elected them? Does it bother you that they keep passing tax cuts that benefit primarily the wealthy while taking millions of dollars from public education?

6. Speaking of the Utah legislature, do you ever wonder why the Republicans in Utah censured Mitt Romney for voting his conscience on Donald Trump’s second impeachment but throw their full support behind a man who has no conscience or any shred of moral character? I’ve been reading McKay Coppins’s biography of Romney and was sobered by a December 2018 email the senator-elect sent to two of his advisors shortly before he published his Washington Post op-ed: “I was asked repeatedly to apologize for what I said about Donald Trump, to say that having spent more time with him, I had learned that I was wrong. I demurred. But in truth, I did not imagine he would be so tragic as president. The incessant lying, the adulterer payoffs, the unwillingness to study and deliberate. The weakening of alliances, the elevation of autocrats, the impetuous decision, the demonizing of others, the divisiveness, the inability to hire and retain people of accomplishment—these are as stunning to me as they are to others. I did not think he would be this bad.” Romney was right, of course, and a second Trump term would be much worse. Trump would not surround himself with people who will try to deflect him from his awful instincts. He would surround himself with toadies who would stoop to any level to please the Dear Leader. Congress is already full of such cowards.

7. Are you afraid to vote for Joe Biden because you believe the disinformation about his mental acuity? If so, please view this interview of the president by Heather Cox Richardson¹ or his recent State of the Union address.² By contrast, have you seen the word salad that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth every time he speaks? Age is irrelevant in this contest. Who is really mentally fit to be president?

8. Do you ever wonder why there is no “Never Biden” movement in the Democratic Party? Many Democrats do not agree with all of his policies and are concerned about his age, but they do not think he is a danger to democracy or to the future of our country, as many Republicans view Trump. Biden has restored our standing abroad and has brought us economic growth, stability, and increased equality after the devastating pandemic.

9. Is abortion the only or perhaps the primary reason why you vote Republican? If so, I invite you to read this op-ed I had published by the Salt Lake Tribune.³ I believe it is possible to be both pro-life and pro-choice and that it is possible to discourage abortion while allowing it in a variety of dire circumstances.

10. Are you concerned about all the Republican House members who are either leaving office early or not running for reelection? They are doing this because they cannot stand the thought of having to work with Trump or his MAGA mob that has taken over their party.

11. Does it bother you that many Republican Congressmen and -women only support Trump because they fear for their safety and the safety of their families? When has this ever happened in the United States. When have politicians had to fear not the opposing party but members of their own party? Are you aware that Mitt Romney is paying $5,000 a day for security to protect his family from crazed MAGA nuts? When have judges and prosecutors and jurors and election workers ever had to have extra security to protect them from the followers of a corrupt politician? Is this a party you want to be part of?

12. Are you troubled enough by the GOP’s support for Donald Trump and his enablers that you are considering not voting for him? Do you wish that the Republican Party could return to being a “normal” conservative party that pursues healthy conservative policies instead of being a personality cult devoted to the massive but fragile ego of a narcissistic, lawless demagogue? If so, I have bad news for you. You can’t just sit this one out. Not voting is the same as casting a vote for Donald Trump. Voting for RFK Jr. or any other third-party candidate or Ann Romney is the same as casting a vote for Donald Trump. If you really want to save the Republican Party—and I’m not sure that’s even possible anymore—there is only one way. You must vote not just for Joe Biden, but you must also vote for all the Democrats who are running against Trump’s enablers. In Utah, those enablers include Blake Moore, Celeste Maloy, John Curtis, Burgess Owens, Mike Lee, and most of the Utah legislature. The only thing that will alter the course the Republican Party is pursuing is a massive defeat at the ballot box.

If you live in Utah and want a legislature that is responsive to will of the people, you must break the supermajority by voting out at least half of the Republicans. Only when we have a more balanced legislature will we see it function properly through responsiveness to the people and through compromise. As things stand now, these unaccountable “representatives” of the people feel they can get away with whatever they want.

Finally, a reminder of the First Presidency’s message about voting from last June, which was repeated this year by the Utah Area Presidency. The First Presidency said that “merely voting a straight ticket or voting based on ‘tradition’ without careful study of candidates and their positions on important issues is a threat to democracy and inconsistent with revealed standards (see Doctrine and Covenants 98:10).” Why do you think they made this unprecedented statement? Do you think they were worried about too many Latter-day Saints voting straight-ticket Democrat? What brought on this strong encouragement to vote for “candidates . . . who have demonstrated integrity, compassion, and service to others”? Undoubtedly it was a warning about voting for Donald Trump and his enablers, who could easily receive the lion’s share of the LDS vote simply because they are Republican. Unfortunately, too many Latter-day Saints didn’t understand the message.

So, there’s my recruiting plea. You don’t have to join my party or come to my cozy little caucus. But just for this election, please consider voting for a lot of Democrats. It just might save the Constitution, which is, well, “hanging by a thread,” as the saying goes.

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1. “Heather Cox Richardson Interviews President Joe Biden January 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGRXnB_GQcM.

2. “Watch President Biden’s Full 2024 State of the Union Address,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al7ont2noYA.

3. Roger Terry, “There Is a Hole in the LDS Position on Abortion,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 23, 2022, https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2022/05/23/roger-terry-there-is-hole/.

Putting My Money Where My Keyboard Is

 

There’s an old saying that you should “put your money where your mouth is.” It means you should take action to support your stated opinions. In past writings (not just on this blog), I have expressed concern over the gross economic inequality in our society and have promoted ideas such as worker ownership of businesses and a more progressive tax code to help increase economic equality in our society. But those are just words. What about my own actions?

I hope you understand that what follows is not intended as boasting. My purpose is twofold. First, I feel obligated to show that I do put my money where my mouth (or in this case, keyboard) is. And second, I hope what I write will encourage others who can afford to do so to support some of the charitable organizations I will specifically mention or other equally deserving charities.

Let me start by saying that if you work for the Church, as I have for the past 25 years (and for 13 more years in a previous life), you’re not going to get rich—unless you are the head football coach at BYU. Even the prophet and the apostles do not get rich from their living allowance, which is quite modest. That said, I have no complaints. The Church has paid me well for my work and will also provide a good pension when I retire this spring.

My wife and I live fairly frugally. We don’t need a big house or all the expensive toys many families want. My wife does not enjoy shopping, but we do shop sales and take advantage of gasoline discounts at Smith’s (the local Kroger affiliate), often in creative ways. I just bought a two-year-old truck to replace the 24-year-old truck I had driven for 21 years. We owned two different minivans for 14 years each. Because our kids are now grown, we replaced the second minivan with an SUV. We haven’t had a mortgage or a car payment for many years (until the dealer made me finance the new truck, but I’ll pay that off in a month or two). Because of our chosen lifestyle, our monthly budget is quite a bit lower than our income.

We do have a son living with us who suffers from a severe mental illness and who may never be able to work again. So we are trying to make sure there is enough money to take care of him after we are gone. We are also putting a little away for our grandkids’ missions or college educations.

Still, after all this, we are comfortable and do not spend as much as we earn. So, last year we made a decision to increase our charitable giving. There are so many needs. We have always paid a full tithing and have given generously to fast offerings. We pitch in a little more each month for the Church’s humanitarian efforts and help support a missionary whose family struggles financially. Through payroll deductions, I also donate monthly to the BYU scholarship fund and United Way. But we felt we could afford to do more. So we did some research on where we thought our donations could make the most difference, and we set up automatic monthly payments to the following charities:

1. International Rescue Committee

2. Habitat for Humanity

3. World Central Kitchen

4. Community Action and Food Bank (Utah County)

5. Lifting Hands Arizona

6. The Road Home (a Salt Lake homeless shelter)

7. Huntsman Cancer Institute

8. Tabitha’s Way (a local food pantry)

9. Women for Women

10. Salt Lake Rescue Mission

11. American Red Cross

12. RIP Medical Debt

We also donate to KUER, Utah’s public radio station and NPR affiliate. That is not technically a charity, but it performs a vital public service, which we support.

I’d like to say something more about three of the charities listed above. I wanted to donate to Tabitha’s Way primarily because I learned it was cofounded by Al Switzler, one of my professors long ago in BYU’s MBA program. I was impressed by his motivation in helping the needy. And RIP Medical Debt is an amazing organization that uses donations to buy medical debt for pennies on the dollar and then retire it. The United States is probably the only country on earth where hundreds of thousands of people declare bankruptcy each year because of medical debt (some estimates are as high as 650,000 bankruptcies, affecting 2 million family members).¹ RIP pays off the debt and sends people letters informing them that their medical debt has been eliminated. The responses from the benefactors are priceless. I feel privileged to be able to play a small role in this beautiful program.

We became aware of the International Rescue Committee’s work through the IRC’s president, David Milibrand, who was the commencement speaker at our oldest son’s graduation from a master’s program at Columbia University. Milibrand is British and is the son of refugees who fled continental Europe during World War II. He has served the United Kingdom as both Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Secretary of State for the Environment. The IRC assists and helps resettle people who have been uprooted by conflict, war, and disaster.

You’ll also notice in the list at least a couple of organizations that assist the homeless. I have had a soft spot in my heart for the homeless ever since the Liahona sent me to Montreal in 1999 to interview Pierre Anthian, a Parisian dental technician who moved to Montreal to get married. When the engagement fell apart, he stayed and started volunteering at a local food kitchen. But he was not satisfied with just giving handouts to the homeless. That didn’t solve the underlying problem. So he considered what more he could do. Because Pierre had been trained in choral music at the conservatories of Paris, Pau, and Cannes, he decided he would start a choir of homeless men. They began by singing in the subway stations, collecting donations in a hat they placed on the floor in front of them. As they became more well-known, they received invitations to perform at schools, businesses, and even sing the national anthem at a National Hockey League game. They divided up the money they earned in the subway station but donated the revenues from their other performances to the food kitchen where Pierre volunteered.²

Through Pierre’s efforts, he was able to get 17 men off the street. My wife and I spent an unforgettable weekend with the Montreal homeless choir. Some of the choir members are former criminals. “Let’s just say thievery and attempted murder are not the worst offenses on the list,” Pierre once told a reporter. “And they are my friends.” Some people on the street, he is quick to explain, have drug or alcohol problems. Some run afoul of the law. But often these difficulties are the result, and not the cause, of their sad situations. In many cases these individuals “have simply been unluckier than you or me.”

Needless to say, Pierre Anthian is one of the most Christlike human beings I have ever met. It is because of his example that I later met a homeless man named Don. While working in the Church Office Building, every now and then I would go buy lunch at the food court of the old ZCMI Center just south of the Church campus. Most days I would see a homeless man sitting on a planter box near the crosswalk with a cup beside him for any loose change pedestrians felt inclined to give him. I gave him money now and then, but one day I decided I needed to do more. So, I sat down and talked with him. Over several weeks, I got to know him quite well.

Don looked very weathered. That is because he was sleeping under a tarp somewhere up on Ensign Peak and spending his days out in whatever weather prevailed that day. He was one of those unlucky people Pierre talked about. He had been co-owner of a restaurant. His partner took all the money and left him high and dry. One thing led to another, and he ended up homeless.

I learned a lot from Don about life on the street. He also told me which of the panhandlers in the area were truly homeless and which of them were simply begging as a job. One particularly visible amputee often panhandled with a dog. On days when he had the dog with him, Don told me, he could bring in $200 in handouts. Not bad for the early 2000s. This man had a house of his own and simply preyed on people’s charity. This is why I rarely give cash to panhandlers and prefer to donate generously to reputable organizations that help the truly needy.

To make a long story short, I eventually talked to my bishop, who was vice president at a Salt Lake County business. His company checked out Don’s background and offered him a part-time job. The last time I saw Don was when I met him and my bishop for lunch a few months later. The change was incredible. If I had passed Don on the street, I would not have recognized him.

I don’t know what Don is doing now. I did find out, before I changed jobs, that my bishop’s company had had to let Don go because he had come to work drunk one day, but I hope he landed on his feet somewhere else.

Homelessness is a difficult problem with no easy solutions, but I appreciate and support those organizations that are working to alleviate its effects. There are so many problems in today’s world that are hard to solve. None of us can hope to end these problems, but each of us can do something, even if it is nothing more than financially supporting those charities that are bearing the burden of this difficult work.

I should also add that I do not complain about paying taxes, as so many do. I consider it a privilege that comes with living in a democratic republic. I do not like everything the government does, and I know government is often inefficient. But I feel blessed to live in a democracy rather than an authoritarian regime where the people have no voice at all. I have argued at times that we Americans are quite undertaxed.³ I and many who are better off than I am can certainly afford to pay more in taxes so that we stop building up the massive debt we have accumulated since Reagan ushered in supply-side economics and Republicans embraced the lie that tax cuts pay for themselves (they never do). So, when tax season rolls around (and it is here again), I do my own taxes. I majored in accounting for a couple of years, long ago, and I took a couple of tax classes, so I’m somewhat comfortable wading through the IRS’s sometimes impenetrable form 1040 instructions. I don’t have complicated investments, so my tax return is fairly straightforward. And I don’t look for creative ways to avoid paying my fair share of the nation’s or state’s tax burden. If I miss a deduction I could have claimed, I just consider it another charitable donation. And I know I am blessed to be able to even say this.

 

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1. See, for instance, https://www.citizen.org/article/medicare-for-all-prevents-medical-bankruptcies/ and https://berniesanders.com/medical-bankruptcy.

2. You can read about Pierre and his choir at https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/2000/12/the-least-of-these?lang=eng.

3. For comparisons with other OECD countries’ tax revenues as a percentage of GDP, see https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-revenue.htm.

Donald Trump and the Corruption of Christianity

 

Conservative evangelical columnist David French has written often about how Donald Trump has corrupted much of Christianity. In a recent column,¹ he talks about friends and family who vote for Trump. He says, “I love them dearly. But the most enduring legacy of a second Trump term could well be the conviction on the part of millions of Americans that Trumpism isn’t just a temporary political expediency, but the model for Republican political success and—still worse—the way that God wants Christian believers to practice politics.”

He notes changes in individual character, not just of Rudy Giuliani and other MAGA insiders, but changes in ordinary Americans. “Never before have I seen extremism penetrate a vast American community so deeply, so completely and so comprehensively.” He says this isn’t a subjective sensation. “Polling data again and again backs up the reality that the right is abandoning decency, and doing so in the most alarming ways.” In 2011, white evangelicals were least likely to say that a politician could behave immorally in private but “still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life.” By October of 2016, they had become the most likely to find immoral behavior acceptable in politicians.

He then cites polling that shows 33 percent of Republicans and 41 percent of Trump devotees agreed with the statement that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” Only 13 percent of Democrats, by contrast, agreed with this statement.

French is obviously disturbed by the changes he has seen and that have been documented among his own people, evangelical Christians. “The result,” he says, “is a religious movement steeped in fanaticism but stripped of virtue.” Perhaps most troubling to French is “how Trump’s core supporters convey their tribal allegiance. They’re often deliberately rude, transgressive or otherwise unpleasant, just to demonstrate how little they care about conventional moral norms.”

The core of the MAGA movement is made up of white evangelical Christians, if we can call them that. How can we possibly call people Christians who excuse the endless lies, the sexual crimes and indiscretions, the repeated business fraud, the self-dealing, the narcissism, the hatred of refugees, the disregard for the environment, the bragging (often about behaviors that are far from admirable), the 91 indictments, and on and on and on? How can a Bible-believing people become so thoroughly corrupted by a two-bit huckster?

Unfortunately, evangelical Christians are not alone in this. Many Latter-day Saints have become more Trumpist than Mormon. Look at Mike Lee, Utah’s senior senator, who spent many hours each day trying to promote an unconstitutional scheme to overthrow the will of the voters. Look at the treatment LDS speaker of the Arizona House Rusty Bowers received from his fellow “saints,” all for following his conscience and not overturning a fair election.

The First Presidency’s letter last summer to be read in sacrament meeting admonished Church members “to spend the time to become informed about the issues and candidates[;] . . . study candidates carefully and vote for those who have demonstrated integrity, compassion, and service to others, regardless of party affiliation”; and understand that “merely voting a straight ticket or voting based on ‘tradition’ without careful study of candidates and their positions on important issues is a threat to democracy and inconsistent with revealed standards (see Doctrine and Covenants 98:10).”

D&C 98:10 says, “Wherefore, honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold; otherwise whatsoever is less than these cometh of evil.”

Most Church members did not understand what the First Presidency was saying. I suppose if they really want the members to avoid voting for dishonest and corrupt men, they are going to have to be much more explicit. But I understand their dilemma. How do you convince Church members to stop supporting evil, when they apparently can’t tell the difference between morality and immorality anymore? If they do come out and tell the members to vote against a corrupt party, they may well alienate a good portion of the American Church.

Liberal columnist Frank Bruni (New York Times) wrote recently about the new religion of the GOP: nastiness.^{2 “}We’ve spent the past few days deconstructing what happened at the Iowa caucuses. I’m still stuck on what happened before: We saw just how faithfully the Republican Party now worships at the church of nasty. Just how fully it genuflects before the great god of nastiness, Donald Trump. I don’t mean by supporting and voting for him, though there’s that. I mean by idolizing and emulating him.”

He then went into detail about how the also-rans in the Republican presidential primary have adopted Trump’s total disregard for decorum. He summed up the Iowa caucuses with this: “There’s a rationale for the nastiness. My Times Opinion colleague Zeynep Tufekci, who recently interviewed scores of Trump voters, explained in a column last weekend that they regard his ‘penchant for insults’ as proof that he’s uniquely ‘strong and honest enough’ to say out loud what other politicians want but don’t have the nerve to. He’s not indecent. He’s authentic and unbowed.

“I guess that’s what Matt Gaetz was going for back when he was tormenting Kevin McCarthy and bringing the government to a halt. To some of his constituents, he wasn’t a preening punk. He was a righteous hell-raiser, just like Marjorie Taylor Greene, for whom nastiness is less trait than creed. The two of them are high priests (of a sort) in their party. Says everything about the new religion.”

Unfortunately, this is the new GOP, and Latter-day Saints who vote for this party are finding it increasingly easy to put on the blinders and call good evil and evil good.

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1. David French, “The Greatest Threat Posed by Trump,” New York Times, January 12, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/opinion/donald-trump-culture-decline.html?campaign_id=39&emc=edit_ty_20240112&instance_id=112341&nl=opinion-today&regi_id=93058658&segment_id=155029&te=1&user_id=b82adcd02b2fec762995462844df3be5.

2. Frank Bruni, “The G.O.P.’s ‘Nasty’ New Religion,” New York Times, January 18, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/18/opinion/trump-republicans-desantis-haley.html.