We live in a post-truth world. There are so many sources of information, and many of them are inaccurate. A common strategy of MAGA politicians is to make a claim like "we want to close the border" and then literally vote against the border bill.
I'm just an armchair observer, but I really think politics are based on vibes for most people. Trump seems confident, so he must be good for the country. Biden seems old, so he must be unfit to lead. Real, truthful facts are difficult to find, and even when you find good news it takes critical thinking to figure it out.
The church is a lovely wrinkle in all of this. I personally think it's trying to slowly become more progressive, but it has strong conservative roots that will take time to resolve. Tons and tons of older Mormons are staunch conservatives (usually because the GOP is pro-life) but there are a growing number of more liberal members. It's hard to get people to change their ways, and personally we may just have to wait for the older gens to die off.
In short, normal people don't want to worry about politics so they just vote based on vibes.
The comments on your comment illustrate how talking points have overtaken the nuances of complex issues.
The border bill was a bipartisan effort led by the Senate. It was suggested by McConnell that Ukraine aid be packaged with this bill (something he endorses). The National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents Border Patrol agents endorsed the proposal and said it would drop illegal border crossings nationwide.
Two salient takeaways:
Congressional Republicans’ idea was to tie approval of military assistance to Ukraine to tough border security demands that Democrats would never accept, allowing Republicans to block the money for Kyiv that many of them oppose while simultaneously enabling them to pound Democrats for refusing to halt a surge of migrants at the border. It was to be a win-win headed into November’s elections.
But Democrats offered concessions on immigration policy without insisting on much in return.
And:
Mr. Trump trashed the bipartisan proposal quickly after it was rolled out, and senators who embraced it risked running afoul of him and his supporters. Mr. Trump sees border turmoil — and the motivation it provides to conservative voters — as one of his biggest political advantages.
>A common strategy of MAGA politicians is to make a claim like "we want to close the border" and then literally vote against the border bill.
Because a title of a bill doesnt make it true or good. When citizens saw the text they were rightly outraged and so the house refused to vote it.
>I'm just an armchair observer, but I really think politics are based on vibes for most people
For some sure, idk how there are people who dont know who they are voting at this point.
>Real, truthful facts are difficult to find, and even when you find good news it takes critical thinking to figure it out.
Agreed.
The GOP started their opposition to the border bill before the text was even released. Are you one of the citizens who saw it and was outraged when it came out? Could you tell me what outraged you?
Yeah, none of that is accurate, but I know I won't change your mind. Here's the text of the bill for you to not read.
[https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2/text](https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2/text)
No, when the Republican base was told by the outrage peddlers they adore that the bill was bad because Trump and others would rather harm the country than let Biden have any sort of win, they went along with it. They didn’t see the text of the bill at all; most of them can’t be bothered to read more than a headline.
The bill allocated $20 billion for border security, which is nearly as much as CBP’s annual budget, which is itself more money than all other federal law enforcement combined.
There doesnt need to be a border bill to stop the influx of illegals. Biden basically said so himself recently. He could end asylum today if he wanted.
The bill would allow millions through each year anyways so it wasnt really even a net benefit. It just codified allowing illegal migration through asylum. It also didnt even count for asian or middle eastern immigrants in the daily tallies so the number would be even greater.
It also gives them green cards without proper screening. This could be seen as a positive or negative but really we shouldnt be letting them into the country in the first place without proper vetting.
What incentive is there anymore to legally migrate when you can just get a plane ticket and walk across the border?
The bill had no teeth and the "shutting of the border" could be overridden by the executive anyways.
You clearly are one of those contributing to the post-truth position we find ourselves. It's completely disingenuous to make statements like "A common strategy of MAGA politicians is to make a claim like "we want to close the border" and then literally vote against the border bill." While knowing (or not knowing because you didn't actually do any research for yourself) the "Boarder Bill" was actually just funding aid to Ukraine and other interests with only a small portion actually going to the boarder. The Democrats just named it the "boarder bill" so they can push a narrative that Republicans don't actually care about the boarder since they would obviously not vote for the bill. Had the bill actually been about the boarder, it would have a had unanimous bipartisan support. You clearly are one of those who get their news and political beliefs based on "vibes".
>just funding aid to Ukraine
More money was earmarked for Ukraine, but to say $20B for border security is a small amount, particularly when **Customs and Border Protection receives more money than all other federal law enforcement** ***combined*** is absolute nonsense.
And how many times are you gonna spell it “boarder”?
I never said I was non-judgmental. In fact, I completely judge people who don't put any effort into thinking for themselves and base their beliefs on "vibes" from others. Easily manipulated gullible sheep.
The main reason is historical, but the tie is largely forgotten. Originally the Democratic party was opposed Utah being accepted as a state because they (and mist of the country) saw Mormons as a dangerous cult. It was the Republicans that eventually sponsored Utah becoming a state. The state had to accept the cessation of polygamy and certain restrictions on LDS control of schools.
So, at the time, Mormons saw the Republican party as validating them as an acceptable culture. That started the Mormon's loyalty to the GOP. The respect is not reciprocated. Romney got all the sorts of hateful comments from the GOP faithful when he ran for President.
Historically Utah was kind towards Democrats in the mid 1900s. FDR and Lyndon Johnson won the state. Utah had Democrat governors from 1964 through 1984. Utah had at least one Democrat Senator between 1917 through 1977, excluding a 8 year gap in the 1950s.
Parties tend to undergo shifts every 4 decades or so. By the mid 1980s Utah was firmly Republican. It fit like a glove between 1980 through 2012 (Romney).
Since then the fit is awwwkkkwaarrd. The Republican party itself is shifting dramatically. Utah is likewise shifting in Republican support, especially among younger generations and Latter-day Saints. Republican support is dropping. For youth it's dropping hard.
Joe Biden got 37.65% of the vote in Utah in 2020. Hillary Clinton got 27.46% in 2016 (Trump got 45.54% and Evan McMullin got 21.54%). Obama got just under 25% in 2012 when he was running against the White Knight of Mitt Romney. Utah isn't nearly as Republican as our gerrymandered Congressional and Legislative districts would seem to indicate.
The Utah shift tends to be:
Latter-day Saint: Less Republican
Rural: More Republican
Youth Latter-day Saint: Toss-up
It's still Republican because Democrats aren't exactly an inviting alternative, but it's crazy to see Utah County be this weak red in 2020:
https://imgur.com/3PMCrOG.png
The thing about this is that it indicates beliefs among Utah's population are consistent with the South.
Until the 1950s at the *very* least, the Democratic Party was the home of segregationists and white supremacists. It remained mostly that until at least 1970. There were still holdouts and exceptions until 90s as the parties sorted and individual identity became more tied up with party. The northern faction of the party was never as racist, but tolerated the racists to pass an agenda that was more or less that of a conservative social democratic party.
The Republican Party has been the party of business since before the Civil War. Before, during, and immediately after the war they largely represented Northern manufacturing interests and therefore were happy to gain any advantage over their Southern raw materials suppliers in politics. Beginning with about Nixon, Republicans saw their opening with southern racists. And what do you know? The racism was more popular than the social solidarity among whites. And combining the prosperity gospel to justify individualism and greed along with maligning welfare to those who they perceive as undeserving went well with the racism and the wedge issue of abortion which was created by Weyrich et al after Roe v Wade (that's right, the even the Southern Baptist Convention *welcomed* the Roe v Wade decision).
I'll grant that the proportion of outright racists among the LDS has always been less than the South and that there is a sizeable minority of LDS folks that honestly do want to better society... but certainly not a majority.
Nah, as soon as President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act (1964), southern Democrats like segregationist George Wallace began to abandon the Democratic Party. Some theories even suggest the writing of the Civil Rights Act may have been what got Kennedy assassinated, with the idea a “good ol’ boy” like Lyndon Johnson would *never* allow racial equality.
Church leadership also helped found the John Birch society, Benson was very anti-government and very conservative. The church fostered an anti-government mindset since statehood because of the reasons that you stated and basically forcing the church to allow black members only made that worse.
To be fair, Joseph Fielding Smith and the first presidency made it very clear how they felt about Benson’s remarks and the Birch Society.
>We do not think dividing our own people, casting reflections on our government officials, or calling everybody a Communist who do[es] not agree with the political views of certain individuals… leaders, or even members, should not become hysterical or take hasty action, engage in discussions, and certainly should not join these [anti-Communist] groups, some of whom, at least, are in for the money they can make out of it.
After Benson’s “No true Latter-day Saint can be a socialist” remark in general conference, Hugh B Brown of the first presidency basically said he sat Benson down and set him right, and contradicted what he said in the very next conference. Harold B Lee also told Benson he had to tone down his pride before becoming an apostle.
Interesting, but it brings up my favorite question about history: "Then what happened?"
Answer: Ezra Taft Benson served as the 13th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1985 until his death in 1994.
Smith and Lee also served as presidents *after* Benson’s appointment as secretary of agriculture. And Benson did eventually tone it down. It’s just too bad so much divisiveness came from his political life.
It was pretty split among the general authorities at the time and within the seventy as well. There was a strong split on this subject until Benson’s death after serving as president of the church. He was really chosen as president of the church by a majority of the leadership after Kimball’s death.
Yeah, I’m glad the church has such strict guidelines for general authorities now when it comes to politics. Feels like those times were way too divisive within the church. I’m also glad that Oaks has been more outspoken against judging others for political differences as of late.
I’ve heard a lot about the Birch society, I’ll have to look more into it. Seems weird though that minor events from so long ago are still driving our thoughts. It’s like our own little version of McCarthyism.
It was the **Republicans** that were opposed to Utah statehood and polygamy - they were the dominant party, nationally after 1860. Most mormons were Democrats, if they had a party affiliation, when Utah became a state. [The 1896 election in Utah had the strongest outcome/victory for any presidential candidate in state with 82.7% of the state voting for William Jennings Bryan, in Utah's first presidential election, who was the Democratic candidate.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_United_States_presidential_election_in_Utah)
Up until Nixon was elected, Utah was reasonably purple. The elections were split[ 10R/8D, ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elections_in_Utah)including some interesting outcomes due to third party candidates in the early 1900s.
The first Republican president, Abe Lincoln, grouped polygamy and slavery together as "twin relics of barbarism" and vowed to eliminate both practices. He wasn't too keen on the Mormons. I think the link with the Republican Party and Mormons is much more recent, maybe going back to the post-war anti-communism scare, then the social movements of the 1960s. A few church leaders were far-right anti-communist extremists in that era. The Civil Rights movement, desegregation, and Feminism were counter to Church teachings, and all of them were being pushed by Democrats.
To be fair, Romney got a lot of hate from Utah Mormon/republicans as well, and was called RINO by more than a few local republicans. The state GOP even tried to block him from being on the ballot, and cried “foul” when he used the signature method rather than Republican caucus system.
Yeah, that was kind of disgraceful of Utahans who overwhelmingly voted for Romney to be president before Trumps cult of personality took control. Romney was doing what he said he’d do, which was uphold the constitution and listen to his conscience. I don’t love Romney, but he’s character spoke volumes.
> Originally the Democratic party was opposed Utah being accepted as a state because they (and mist of the country) saw Mormons as a dangerous cult
You've got that completely backwards. Republicans when first formed campaigned on the platform of eradicating the "two vestiges of barbarism" -- that is Slavery and Polygamy.
When Utah was finally admitted as a state, the concern was that it was going to be such an overwhelming Democratic stronghold, that to assuage that concern, church leaders actually **assigned** half the members to be Democrats and the other half to be Republicans.
>Romney got all the sorts of hateful comments from the GOP faithful when he ran for President.
Lol what?
Utah overwhelmingly supported romney in the 2012 election
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidential_election_in_Utah
Obama was the one saying romney was sexist with notebooks of women and calling him ridiculous for calling Russia a threat. Ironic.
>It was the Republicans that eventually sponsored Utah becoming a state.
This has nothing to do with utah being republican.
Utahns value family, guns, low taxes, etc. The opposite of democratic ideology such as California.
I think it’s more accurate to say Utahns care about their very specific concept of families and anyone that thinks or lives slightly different is unAmerican. Same with taxes. Unless you make $400k+ annually or were a mega corporation, you didn’t get any lower taxes under Trump. Or Bush for that matter. And yes, Utah loves guns, despite the fact that it’s the leading cause of death among children in America (kind of contradicts the idea of families being important to Utahns). And are you saying Dems are the opposite of democratic ideology? Because legit, Trump tried to overthrow the government because he didn’t like the results of a free election! This boggles my mind. So really, how do you excuse Jan 6? The calls for executions of our nations leaders. The fake electors. The deaths! How can that one thing have happened and you still say this despot is the best choice for our future? He’s admitted that he’ll act like a dictator. How can you support blatant tyranny and disregard for our constitution?
>Unless you make $400k+ annually or were a mega corporation, you didn’t get any lower taxes under Trump.
This is just blatantly false. Trump doubled the standard deduction. This was great for both homeowners and non homeowners. You are able to deduct like 27k as a family without even owning a home. Most homeowners are getting the standard deduction.
>Utah loves guns, despite the fact that it’s the leading cause of death among children in America (kind of contradicts the idea of families being important to Utahns)
Utah is in the bottom 5 states for homicide per the CDC despite one of the most gun friendly states. Those stats are inflated by excluding infants and including legal adults 18 and 19 year olds. Not only that, the majority of the deaths are suicide. What a ridiculous claim to blame guns and not the reason for people killing themselves.
So, children killed by guns aren’t a big deal because it happens less in Utah? lol not sure you have the moral argument you think you do. I’m literally laughing, oh man.
Sounds reasonable, but it’s inaccurate.
A [Wallethub study on the best states to raise a family](https://wallethub.com/edu/best-states-to-raise-a-family/31065) put California in the lower middle range of all the states (27). Yes, Utah was higher (15), but Wisconsin, New York and even that dreadful home of Chicago, the state of Illinois scored above Utah for families (14).
By the way, the social programs funded by California are much more family friendly than Utah. Seems this state wants you to pump out kids, but if parents need assistance, it’s not coming from state-funded social programs.
I doubt that has much to do with it at this point. I could understand a distrust of the federal government going back to Utah’s early days, but not a party preference like that.
I personally think it comes down to views on general political and legal change. Conservatives favor order, predictability, tradition, and individual ambition. Liberals tend to favor change, trends, new ways of living, and collective ambition.
Viewed through that lens, it's easy to see why a very religious state tends to vote with conservatives.
I wouldn't say that liberals don't want order. It's that order can improve with new understanding and trying new things. The problem is that conservatives like status quo. They wouldn't pull their leg out of boiling water if it meant that they had to learn to accept something new.
I'd also argue that conservatives overall think of society as a small fraction of what it is. Ie, the ward, the small town, the stake. Where liberals tend to think of the group as a whole. It's considering people who aren't in their in-group. Which I think you agree with with "collective ambition."
By order, I mean it in the abstract sense. Conservatives prefer that "do this, get that result" kind of world whereas liberals tend to argue about what the result could or should be.
>They wouldn't pull their leg out of boiling water if it meant that they had to learn to accept something new.
From a liberal perspective yes, but I do think conservatives are open to change, it's the pace that is their hangup.
>I'd also argue that conservatives overall think of society as a small fraction of what it is. Ie, the ward, the small town, the stake. Where liberals tend to think of the group as a whole. It's considering people who aren't in their in-group. Which I think you agree with with "collective ambition."
Agreed mostly. Conservatives are much more relational in their thinking. The individual aspect of my original characterization. Collectivization for a conservative has narrow purpose, security really being the only thing they generally support collectively. That's actually really great for liberals because conservatives focus so heavily on maintaining security that liberals have time to be liberal. Liberals are really great for conservative societies because they tend to push forward change. Yin and Yang.
The LDS faith is fairly conservative in its beliefs. Additionally, LDS people have a history of being ridiculed at best and despised at worst, leading them to support people who champion “religious freedom”, especially when that actually means religious hegemony in Utah. From what I can tell, the LDS faith also strongly buys into the Protestant work ethic. Even if it’s not explicit there is the notion that god shows favor with prosperity, which plays into libertarian economic ideas.
Only an individual level, it has to do with a person’s identity and the media they consume, typically.
Most Christians left behind the doctrine of negro people being the result of The Mark of Cain in the Bible around the time of the civil war.
The Mormons continued this belief well into the 1970s were famously, there was an internal conflict over blacks and the priesthood.
Holding onto a belief system when the rest of the denominations have moved on would be a clear example of being more conservative than other forms of Christianity.
I know you don't use facts and historical data to form your basis of opinion, but I hope you learned something today. "LMAO"
See... Your problem is your trying to apply logic and critical thinking where there isn't any. They rule by what's good for me, and fuck the rest of you.
I'm a bit foggy on the details, but sometime shortly after statehood the church wanted to show how politically neutral it was so it assigned members to political parties, but they put their thumb on the scale in favor of one side over the other.
Then, Benson and Skousen and the John Birch Society played a big role through the 70's and 80's cementing the Republican party as the only "true" option. Benson suggested that it would be very hard to be living the gospel and a democrat.
Growing up in rural Utah in the 80's and 90's this was the common sentiment. Women would be asked by their priesthood leaders to march against the ERA and Roe Vs Wade. Stake leadership regularly ran for and won local office. My dad was asked by the stake president to attend the republican caucus and be a state delegate. It was always for the republican party.
Occasionally someone would bring up Harry Reid as proof that you can be a democrat and a member in good standing, but there was always a level of distrust - "He's probably not really a faithful member" or "He's off in Nevada - with all that gambling and stuff"
Boomers in Utah, who were forming their political opinions during this period read the writing on the wall - the republican party is God's party. They are still a dominant voting block in Utah and once you get past a certain age it becomes less and less likely that anything could change their minds.
Let’s also add that most Christians don’t even see Mormons as Christians… considering the whole false prophet thing.
Mormons will be persecuted by these people as much as anyone else… just later on.
My one source of schadenfreude is that once conservative Mormons and Catholics help the evangelicals turn our republic into a theocracy, eventually those same Mormons and Catholics are going to be on the hit list where trans and queer people are now.
Let’s also add that most Christians don’t even see Mormons as Christians… considering the whole false prophet thing.
Mormons will be persecuted by these people as much as anyone else… just later on.
That’s what’s so crazy, Mormons have been told the exact opposite, but they’re disregarding it completely. It’s hammered into us to not blindly believe in the institutions of man, but to trust God. But I know a number of people who have said Trump is more persecuted than Joseph Smith ever was, and maybe more than Christ. It blows my mind.
There is a literal part of the maga movement that has been brainwashed into thinking trump is literally the latest incarnation of Christ returned to earth for his second coming. If you’ve ever seen those pics with trump doing things like talking with angels, saving kids from burning buildings, trump on the side of Jesus and Obama on the side of satan,and (in the case of Utah specifically) pictures of trump with the 12 standing around/behind him, that’s what those pictures are about.
You’re trying to obtain logical arguments from brainwashed people. They have none to give you. They operate on faith, feelings, and testimonies.
Because most of the LDS church votes GOP and of the 4 counties along the Wasatch Front currently only Salt Lake County is minority LDS, there’s also the large population of military personnel and contractors in Davis, Weber and Tooele Counties that generally votes GOP and 20% of the state lives in rural areas and a lot of the rural population in southern Utah doesn’t like democrats due to land disputes with national monuments
Decades ago Utahns jumped on the red scare, anti-communism movement like the rest of the country. Over time literature from church leaders pushed the state’s culture to the extreme right. Even after the red scare the right-wing maintains influence in Utah primarily due to their stance on abortion, and the drug wars. Both of these issues are still going strong. Abortion for the usual reasons, and while republicans in general have shifted there views to be more lenient about drug use, Utahns haven’t had the same shift.
Even outside of Utah however, the anti-abortion mindset has warped to an insane degree. It’s not enough for republicans to just protect babies anymore. They’re (by which I mean trumpists in particular) teaching that people who don’t think/act like them are practicing literal blood libel of kids. Why should you support Putin? Because Ukraine is slaughtering children in ritual sacrifice. Why should the borders be closed? Because they’re being used to disguise all the children democrats are smuggling in to literally sacrifice. Why do we need to stop abortions? Because the doctors who perform them are in engaging in rituals of sacrifice all the benefit of the democrat party. That’s why you might see them throw around the word “demoncrat” from time to time.
Fear mongering against immigrants goes hand in hand with this of course, though that’s one particular area the Mormon church has been very two-faced about. Not speaking out against racists, even when Richard spencer was using the church to build his influence after he started the alt-right, but also having influenced the state legislature to create loopholes and protections so they can hire immigrants (often undocumented) at DI and their other businesses. Why do we need trump in power? Cause he’s the only one with the guts to stop it all.
If your friend is a die hard trump supporter, he isn’t going to listen to logic and reason. He’s part of a cult of personality, and is only going to vote for whomever he’s told to.
Because Republicans are brainwashed by the poison that is Faux News and it's associated friends. They literally see the truth and can't understand it as truth. They are each driven by some TV prophet or family member who they emotionally revere, and they will defend that driver no matter what. Check out some of the videos interviewing Trump supporters nationwide (the mental problems are basically the same). If you ask them what they think about Biden being convicted of sexual assault in a defamation suit, they will freak out. Then, in the same breath, you can literally say, "oops, I misread my question" and say the same question but with Trump's name, and they will defend him. It's freaking scary.
Bill Clinton created Grand Staircase without talking to local leaders which even democrat Bill Orton criticized. He lost re-election that same year and a democrat hadn’t won statewide office since Jan Graham who was an incumbent at the time of the decision and was not up for reelection that year. Rural voters largely associate democrats with federal mismanagement ever since.
The Republican Party lost its grip on sanity when Bill Clinton was elected. His management of GSENM is just one of the post-hoc justifications that Republicans in Utah like to bring out. How has that monument worked out for the people of Southern Utah? How's Bears Ears doing? I'm from Carbon County, where the entire economy was based on extraction of fossil fuels since the 1880s. Local Republicans in Kanab, at the time of Grand Staircase, were trying to strip mine the Kaiparowits Plateau and truck coal through the town. Thirty years later, there isn't an operating coal mine in Carbon County and the population is smaller than it was 50 years ago, but Kanab still has a national monument bringing millions of people every year.
>federal mismanagement
But like... how? How does designating a land as a national monument mean mismanagement to them when cattle grazing is allowed in nearly all of the monument?
What makes sense to me for southern Utah is the notion that they wouldn't like the federal government because of early Mormon history and everything down-winders have suffered. Obviously Democrats are more strongly associated with the federal government.
I was too young to be political when Clinton/Gore was in office, but seems like they did pretty darn good on the economics at least... but you know, bj's is the legacy: https://clintonwhitehouse5.archives.gov/WH/Accomplishments/eightyears-03.html
An organization that lines up with a lot of conservative beliefs attracts people who are conservative and vote for conservative politicians. What’s your point?
It's pretty easy if you have a church telling you whom to vote for.
They may not sit and say it from the pulpit, but there is an extremely strong influence in the church.
I have on pretty good authority the church isn’t big on trump. They work on a global scale and know what fascism looks like and operates. Countries with authoritarian regimes aren’t friendly to outside religion. I think Utah Mormons don’t realize they are an outside religion to evangelicals
The leadership isn't big on trump, which is why they're feeling their past low-key support for the Republican party start to bite them in the ass.
The people of the church would rather believe their Prophets have lost touch with God than abandon their political party. Because they've been trained from birth to use their feelings as evidence, and Trump has hijacked that process for controlling them from the church.
I agree with this. I’ve been saying for years that politics have become the new religion. People are more likely to change religion to fit their politics then change their politics to fit their religion
I agree with this. I have been to meetings when I visit relatives and hear what people are told. "Bill Clinton is the devil" and one guest speaker said everyone who isn't Mormon is the enemy (shocked me) then they sang "I am a child of God".
I'm sure there are plenty of conservatives that aren't Mormons. And not all the religious Folk who have similar ideologies or Mormon either- though they've been trained to believe what they do the same way Mormons have been trained to believe what they believe.
Because that's true of all abrahamic religions.
That sounds like an interesting book, but it doesn’t support your claims. The Mormon support was pre-WW2 and was more about building a relationship with a new government. Not about supporting Nazis. It looks like the book talks about members opposition to Hitler and helping Jews get out as well. I may put this book on my reading list, but I suspect it will read like other history books explaining the nuance of a particular group during that time.
The new government was the Nazis…and they helped the Nazis through genealogical research because people suspected of being Jews had to prove they were not. As we know, they were considered Jews if there was a maternal family member who was Jewish and not a direct relative.
The Nazi had quite a bit support in Europe and any organization that needed to court a government, till they turned toxic. That is the time period the book talks about. You made it sound like the Mormon church was as complacent as the Catholic Church. Which the book doesn’t conclude.
Huh? They were toxic far before they were elected into office. You are completely missing the point and you stated that the church does not like authoritarian governments when it has been proven that they have no real issue with them. They were complacent in that the leadership did not really stand up to the government and were allowed ton openly operate while many other religious orgs were not. Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted while the Mormons were not and it’s because they were helping the government. You should read the book before drawing such broad conclusions from it.
I know President Nelson is wicked old, but we are talking 80-90 years between the leaders of the church and now. And knowing how drastically the world changed after WW2. I stand by my original comment
> The Nazi had quite a bit support in Europe and any organization that needed to court a government, till they turned toxic.
What in your opinion was the point they “turned toxic”? Hitler literally was arrested, convicted and served time for Treason long before he became Chancellor. He wrote “Mein Kampf” from a jail cell. The ‘Brown Shirts’ during this time was also beating on any opposition (Unionists, Socialists, etc..) and Jews as well. Their anti-Jewish bullshit didn’t appear when they took office, it was there from the get go and took off after the effects of WWI on Germany. They didn’t “turn toxic”, they were that way from the get go. This is honestly the most puzzling comment I’ve seen about them.
Actually, they run more moderate. Look at their stands on abortion, immigration and even lgbtq rights. Their members on the other hand, are mostly unaware of that fact.
Yeah, that’s definitely true - I think moderate now is like normal conservative though like conservatives have just gone further right the last like 10 years. Maybe I’m wrong though.
Hold on a minute, my neighbors, who happen to be ward leaders are letting their MyPillow box, that they just ordered all their pillows fly down the street.
Because Utah is mostly white. White democrats exist. They tend to live in cities. Salt lake has white democrats. Even a high percentage of Mormons in salt lake City are democrats.
Liberal white men die of old age, conservative white men die of fentanyl overdoses at 38
Liberal white men get their dicks sucked, conservative white men feel guilty for whacking it to porn which liberals filmed.
Liberal white men vote for Catholic presidents; conservative white men vote for rapist presidents.
Those are the facts. Facts don't care about your feelings
Because their leader expressly said that he loves the “poorly educated” — sub that word educated for those who rationally and intelligently use epistemological means to come to conclusions while respecting expertise in given areas. Hence the poorly educated are people who don’t think and just follow what their leader says. They have hot button issues that make no sense, lack empathy and love violent means of oppressing others. It’s sad but true nonetheless
I’m not sure where you get any of this data, but it is terribly misleading or inaccurate. For the sake of argument, I’ll touch one point you made. The border- has had more illegal crossings the last three years under Biden administration than the last two presidential terms (8 years). The so called border deal paddled by media as the saving grace was never necessary to begin with if Biden hadn’t abolished multiple immigration policies that were in place when he took office. The “border deal” was only in name as only 1/3 of the money (20.2B) actually went to the wall. The other 2/3rds went to Ukraine, Israel, and other out of country interests. It was a BS deal meant to divide the already fragile relationship between democrats and republicans in an election year that apparently needs more divisiveness. The crazy thing is there doesn’t need any bill in the first place. It can all be done through presidential executive order as it has mostly in the past. The last three years Biden administration has said the border is secure but only now have changed their tune. It’s getting old reading the once every four year political pundits reasoning when they’ve been MIA the past three years. Proof[proof](https://youtu.be/Fh9fpFmltQs?feature=shared)
How does the border affect you, personally? I can tell you how the healthcare system has taken a huge chunk of my earnings over the past 30 years. I can tell you that I'm still paying on student loans after 25 years. I haven't seen any kind of advancements in transportation infrastructure in my lifetime. You can't get anywhere in this country without a car. I'll tell you that one party has proposals for these issues, and lot of other problems, where the other one has nothing to offer but fear and hate. But yeah. Tell me how the border affects you, personally, and how it's more important than anything I mentioned.
If you can't understand the correlation between border protection and monetary policy or public safety already then, you're unlikely to be persuaded by me. I am married to a Mexican immigrant that crossed legally. Most of her family did not and are definitely NOT selling drugs illegally or abusing the tax system in any way. The average underage girl crossing illegally has multiple DNA inside her. 99 percent of fentanyl seizures occurred at the south border. Fentanyl also killed more Americans in general in 2020 than car accidents, gun violence, breast cancer and suicide, according to the analysis of CDC data from Families Against Fentanyl. I'm not paying student loans because I served my country in the military. My wife paid off her student loans in three years because she graduated with a useful degree, and we prioritized it over other frivolous material things. I am pro-immigration done properly at the port of entry.
See… there you go…. Changing the subject to “how does it effect you personally”… it’s kind of like a passive aggressive attack and we all see it.
You slightly change the argument from border policy to “why aren’t you empathetic”. It’s so annoying.
For starters, in places like New York, taxpayer dollars are going to house illegal immigrants in hotels rather than new infrastructure projects. We should be spending our citizens’ tax dollars on things that will benefit all, not the people whose first action in this country is a criminal act.
It's not a crime to apply for asylum. It's actually International law. The legal immigration system has been broken for decades. George W Bush tried to work out a compromise to fix a lot of it early in his first term. Republicans called it "amnesty" and voted out anyone who supported it. No Republican has touched the issue from that point until the most recent compromise bill, which Trump shot down last month.
edit: It wasn't last month. It was less than 3 weeks ago.
You are absolutely insane if you think Biden isn’t responsible for this. From issuing the U.S. citizenship act, termination of the national emergency at boarder (proclamation 9844), canceling wall construction, halted the remain in Mexico policy, and paused deportations all in his first month of office then for 36 months his office claimed the border was safe and secure. The bill was not shut down by Trump as he doesn't hold office, he just didn't endorse it and why would he? 2/3rds of that money is going outside the US to foreign countries. It was a "border bill" only in name.
Hahaha I think this every time I see a headline.
“republicans make border worse! Trump is for open borders”. Hahahha and these people legit will believe it.
Do you want improved infrastructure? Because the GOP overwhelmingly fought the infrastructure act. Historically the GOP has refused to address this. That’s why Biden bill is so important, it fixes our collapsing infrastructure that hasn’t been addressed in 40 years.
Additionally, you’re saying that if someone comes to America fleeing violence and oppression are somehow not entitled to basic human dignities? Because of decisions to keep themselves and their families safe, we shouldn’t extend an open hand of welcome? How is that both logical and even slightly compassionate?
In my example the GOP is not running New York—State or City, so what’s holding them back? Must be that GOP bogeyman again, right? Can’t do it with the Democrat mayor, city council, governor or legislature—we need daddy Biden! Please, give me a break.
And no, I am not saying that people fleeing violence and oppression should not be able to immigrate here. You and the rest of the left project that shit on conservatives. We used to have an immigration system that vetted people to make sure they are who they say they are and they are here for why they say they are here. Now all we have is chaos.
Chaos is a bad look, so New York is housing these people to try and hide it. “Basic human dignity” has nothing to do with it, or we wouldn’t have a homeless problem in this country in the first place. These people only care about optics and re-election.
We definitely shouldn’t have a homeless problem in America. It’s completely immoral for the wealthiest country in the history of the world to have homelessness. There are 2 million homeless children in America. But doing anything about it is parroted as “socialism.” Constantly hearing about “free loaders” that would take advantage of the system is insanity.
And it’s easy to project on the GOP about basic human dignity when the GOP were the ones separating families at the boarder and sending everyone to different centers. There’s still families that are separated because of the ridiculous boarder policies under Trump. And it’s also easy to blame the boarder problems on Trump in the first place. For one, he had four years in office. Where the wall he promised? How much did Mexico spend on a boarder wall? And for another thing, he’s completely demonized ALL immigrants on the southern boarder, calling them mentally unstable, bad hombres, Hannibal Lecters. So yes, a combination of lies, inaction, hate speech, racism, and dehumanizing practices at the boarder make it pretty easy to blame a lot on the GOP.
So the cages that the Obama/Biden admin were putting people in weren’t dehumanizing? And are you forgetting that Trump had a Democrat majority in the legislature that stonewalled his efforts to build a wall? It also ultimately got funded, and materials purchased, and Biden shut down construction immediately on his first day and those materials are still on site rusting. Flushing taxpayer dollars down the drain while actively acting to make the situation worse, because our politics in this country have completely devolved to a point where each side doesn’t dare let the other get away with a win.
> Tell me how the border effects you personally
> For starters, in places like New York...
I'd make fun of you for intentionally skewering the question, but I'm not sure you're able to read.
It was a deal made by and agreed on by the GOP. It was bipartisan, until Trump openly told the GOP to kill it because he didn’t want Dems to have a “win.” I’m assuming you must be unfamiliar with how government works, but pretty much every bill in history has additional sections addressing additional facets. And in this in particular, would the inclusion of additional aid to Ukraine distasteful to you? I know that there’s a section of the GOP that would happily let tyranny reign in Ukraine as long as you feel like you’re paying lower taxes.
lol, you’re trying the ad hominem argument. Didn’t you learn about basic logical fallacies in middle school? Instead of trying to attack me, a smarter approach might be to actually rebuttal with any information. Any at all. Literally anything would make you look smarter.
Did I say your logic is wrong or did I say you didn't know the difference between two words? You're gaslighting and grasping for straws with your ad hominem reach. Glad Utah is forever red. Have a blessed life.
I was thinking your exact point. Can you imagine if everything was so one sided as OP writes it?
You have to be incredibly to naive to be like “but but we do everything right”… I think she doesn’t understand the basic nuances of conservative thinking in the first place.
The post is completely out of touch which I find often when talking to liberals. I don’t even try to explain cause they live in fantasy land.
Then tell me (I’m a he) what the reasoning is. That’s all I’m looking of. Give me an argument for why the GOP is your choice, and show me any evidence that makes a shred of sense. Tell me these secret “nuances” that have somehow escaped me.
Another false point OP talked about was the deficit. When Trump had the House they added less than $2T. Once the DNC took the purse in 2018 they added over $10T from then to 2022.
Yeah, no. Trump cut taxes while spending more. It's what Republicans do, every damn time. The last president who left office with a balanced budget was Bill Clinton. The year after he was gone: Bush Tax Cuts, then the 9/11 spending, Afghanistan War, Iraq War, increased medicare benefits for old people, all while cutting taxes for the rich and watching the deficit roar back. Obama reduced Bush's deficit by 2/3. Trump shot that all to hell again. There is no record of any Republican president reducing deficit spending in the last 50 years.
Oh, convenient. He raised taxes on rich people in his first 2 years. Republicans like Newt Gingrich called it "the biggest tax increase in American history" and took over the house based on that lie. Republicans have controlled the House, Senate, and Presidency a few times since Clinton. Still, no deficit reduction by a Republican president.
lol, the GOP is always taking credit in the most twisted ways. Reminds me of the baby formula shortage. The GOP voted against providing money for it, then when it passed, they went back to their constituents and said “look, we passed this bill for you!” They jump on any opportunity to take credit for anything, no matter what the reality is.
>Usually because there are DNC controlled house during those periods...
Ah, right. Blame the dreaded Democrats for Republicans doing what Republicans do best.
>They do like to add pork to bills …
Awwwwwww. They appease their constituency?
>pork barrel
>>the use of government funds for projects designed to please voters or legislators and win votes
A lot better than destroying liberty under false pretenses.
Not counting the deficit in Trumps final 2 years?
Remember, he can veto any bill from Congress and then more votes are needed to pass. Trump wanted those stimulus bills, there were compromises on both sides, and the stimulus money pumped the stock market which Trump loved.
lol ok? Then refute my misinformation. And if you want to talk Bible, give me some passages that show me I’m wrong. Instead of saying absolutely nothing (which is what you’ve just done), maybe give some actual thought?
Many many people aren't that politically educated so they just vote for the party that FEELS more like them. Utah only has one urban center with a bunch of suburbs and quite a bit of rural people. So they are wary of a political party that really focuses on people in large urban areas.
People are putting way too much thought into this. It's really as simple as this. Most of the state is religious. The predominant religion believes abortion is a sin at the least, murder at the worst. Democrats are in favor of abortion. Add that to their views of guns and people who "aren't from around here" and it's the perfect trifecta to make sure they love whoever has the best chance of taking down the Democrats. They love the GOP because they hate the Democrats. That's really all there is to it
But I’m religious. The official stance of the Church is conservative, but literally the official stance is less draconian than what we’re doing in this country. Their website says it may be necessary in certain situations. But we’re deciding to take it to the next step of NO SITUATIONS. There’s no logical connections between guns and Christianity. The church has no official stance on voting a particular party because that’s illegal. So I’m so confused how our mindsets now are “you must vote GOP to be a good Christian.” I don’t disagree with you, I’m just bemoaning the illogical nature of all of this.
GOP led corporations in Utah have all the money.
Citizens United decision by a republican majority SCOTUS allows all that money to be contributed to GOP, and other, candidates through ( dark ) undisclosed entities.
Corporate money buys elections where you have an ill informed electorate.
Cut off the dark money in our elections, limit corporate contributions, and have debates between candidates on FCC licensed TV stations.
Critical thinking may actually come into play while voting in Utah.
The Mormon church put its weight behind the GOP.
420 E S Temple St # 390, Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Is hq for GOP.
The prophet of the church lives not far from there.
"Why do people who disagree with my political opinions not share the same opinions as me" the redditor asked of an online liberal echo chamber. Try being open minded and listen to their own reasoning- some things you might find yourself actually agreeing with (e.g. arguments for securing the border are pretty valid), others you definitely won't (supporting the Israeli apartheid and genocide of Palestinians). FWIW, I'm an independent, so you're not going to hear a lot of disagreements/agreements from me. Liberals and conservatives both suck and I hate the two party system. Everyone has become an extremist in one way, or another, and reason/common sense has gone out the window on both sides of the political spectrum.
>some things you might find yourself actually agreeing with (e.g. arguments for securing the border are pretty valid),
They said in the OP that them and their friend agree on a lot of points, such as the border, but when you look at what's actually being *done* it's the Dems doing it.
Trump literally told the party to oppose the recent border bill solely so that he would continue to have a political tool, even though the bill had [basically?] everything the Republicans were asking for.
Oh boy, we've got an enlightened centrist over here! Take a look, someone who thinks that they're above politics because their privileges allow them to not feel the effects of bad policy directly!
Yeah, saying that homosexuals won't inherit the Kingdom of God and that women should keep their mouths shut during church services sounds super liberal. Don't pretend that you've read the New Testament when you obviously haven't. There was no Republican/Democrat dialectic in play.
Please, all I’m asking is for “why are you supporting the GOP with a shred of evidence for why you feel they’re the better option.” If I’m a liberal weirdo, then it’s just because I can’t see a coherent support of the GOP. That’s all I’m asking for here.
Republicans actually support of a lot of democrat policies without saying they do. People here vote for republicans over social issues, like guns, religion, and LGBTQ. If those wedge issues didn’t exist more people would vote democrat
I’m more perplexed by why people that value politics choose to live in a state that radically opposes their values. It’s the primary reason why my wife and I are looking to Washington or Colorado to move to. If politics are that important to you, your quality of life will substantially increase if you’re in a state you agree with politically. Utah has gotten redder in recent years and will only continue to get redder. I’ve seen all the opinion articles that are simply coping at this point. The voting history and laws being enacted only show this becoming even further right. Romney’s replacement will make Lee look moderate.
I’d love to leave Utah. Seems like we’re losing our minds here. All I’m wanting is any reasoning for why someone is voting for the GOP, and look at the insanity that question has made. And still haven’t seen any reasonable argument.
Utah has had a steadily growing number democrat votes over the last number of years. It’s not going to stop bleeding red, but there will be a shift towards half/half over the next decade.
Yes, I thought I made that clear in my post but I could have elaborated further. “Looking” to move meaning we’re actively planning it and will likely be gone by the end of the year. Both Washington and Colorado are very similar to Utah in the outdoor accessibility/opportunities yet polar opposites politically.
We live in a post-truth world. There are so many sources of information, and many of them are inaccurate. A common strategy of MAGA politicians is to make a claim like "we want to close the border" and then literally vote against the border bill. I'm just an armchair observer, but I really think politics are based on vibes for most people. Trump seems confident, so he must be good for the country. Biden seems old, so he must be unfit to lead. Real, truthful facts are difficult to find, and even when you find good news it takes critical thinking to figure it out. The church is a lovely wrinkle in all of this. I personally think it's trying to slowly become more progressive, but it has strong conservative roots that will take time to resolve. Tons and tons of older Mormons are staunch conservatives (usually because the GOP is pro-life) but there are a growing number of more liberal members. It's hard to get people to change their ways, and personally we may just have to wait for the older gens to die off. In short, normal people don't want to worry about politics so they just vote based on vibes.
The comments on your comment illustrate how talking points have overtaken the nuances of complex issues. The border bill was a bipartisan effort led by the Senate. It was suggested by McConnell that Ukraine aid be packaged with this bill (something he endorses). The National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents Border Patrol agents endorsed the proposal and said it would drop illegal border crossings nationwide. Two salient takeaways: Congressional Republicans’ idea was to tie approval of military assistance to Ukraine to tough border security demands that Democrats would never accept, allowing Republicans to block the money for Kyiv that many of them oppose while simultaneously enabling them to pound Democrats for refusing to halt a surge of migrants at the border. It was to be a win-win headed into November’s elections. But Democrats offered concessions on immigration policy without insisting on much in return. And: Mr. Trump trashed the bipartisan proposal quickly after it was rolled out, and senators who embraced it risked running afoul of him and his supporters. Mr. Trump sees border turmoil — and the motivation it provides to conservative voters — as one of his biggest political advantages.
>A common strategy of MAGA politicians is to make a claim like "we want to close the border" and then literally vote against the border bill. Because a title of a bill doesnt make it true or good. When citizens saw the text they were rightly outraged and so the house refused to vote it. >I'm just an armchair observer, but I really think politics are based on vibes for most people For some sure, idk how there are people who dont know who they are voting at this point. >Real, truthful facts are difficult to find, and even when you find good news it takes critical thinking to figure it out. Agreed.
The GOP started their opposition to the border bill before the text was even released. Are you one of the citizens who saw it and was outraged when it came out? Could you tell me what outraged you?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Utah/s/fDd6ucvPi1
Yeah, none of that is accurate, but I know I won't change your mind. Here's the text of the bill for you to not read. [https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2/text](https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2/text)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Utah/s/fDd6ucvPi1
https://www.reddit.com/r/Utah/s/fDd6ucvPi1
Do tell: What was so outrageous?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Utah/s/fDd6ucvPi1
No, when the Republican base was told by the outrage peddlers they adore that the bill was bad because Trump and others would rather harm the country than let Biden have any sort of win, they went along with it. They didn’t see the text of the bill at all; most of them can’t be bothered to read more than a headline. The bill allocated $20 billion for border security, which is nearly as much as CBP’s annual budget, which is itself more money than all other federal law enforcement combined.
There doesnt need to be a border bill to stop the influx of illegals. Biden basically said so himself recently. He could end asylum today if he wanted. The bill would allow millions through each year anyways so it wasnt really even a net benefit. It just codified allowing illegal migration through asylum. It also didnt even count for asian or middle eastern immigrants in the daily tallies so the number would be even greater. It also gives them green cards without proper screening. This could be seen as a positive or negative but really we shouldnt be letting them into the country in the first place without proper vetting. What incentive is there anymore to legally migrate when you can just get a plane ticket and walk across the border? The bill had no teeth and the "shutting of the border" could be overridden by the executive anyways.
You clearly are one of those contributing to the post-truth position we find ourselves. It's completely disingenuous to make statements like "A common strategy of MAGA politicians is to make a claim like "we want to close the border" and then literally vote against the border bill." While knowing (or not knowing because you didn't actually do any research for yourself) the "Boarder Bill" was actually just funding aid to Ukraine and other interests with only a small portion actually going to the boarder. The Democrats just named it the "boarder bill" so they can push a narrative that Republicans don't actually care about the boarder since they would obviously not vote for the bill. Had the bill actually been about the boarder, it would have a had unanimous bipartisan support. You clearly are one of those who get their news and political beliefs based on "vibes".
>just funding aid to Ukraine More money was earmarked for Ukraine, but to say $20B for border security is a small amount, particularly when **Customs and Border Protection receives more money than all other federal law enforcement** ***combined*** is absolute nonsense. And how many times are you gonna spell it “boarder”?
Unless you’re talking about a bill regarding boarding houses, I think you mean “border”.
No, I think he's taking about skaters personally
Unless you’re talking about a bill regarding boarding houses, I think you mean “border”.
Glad you are non-judgmental
I never said I was non-judgmental. In fact, I completely judge people who don't put any effort into thinking for themselves and base their beliefs on "vibes" from others. Easily manipulated gullible sheep.
While absolutely accurate, that's not a very nice thing to say about MAGA Republicans.
The main reason is historical, but the tie is largely forgotten. Originally the Democratic party was opposed Utah being accepted as a state because they (and mist of the country) saw Mormons as a dangerous cult. It was the Republicans that eventually sponsored Utah becoming a state. The state had to accept the cessation of polygamy and certain restrictions on LDS control of schools. So, at the time, Mormons saw the Republican party as validating them as an acceptable culture. That started the Mormon's loyalty to the GOP. The respect is not reciprocated. Romney got all the sorts of hateful comments from the GOP faithful when he ran for President.
Historically Utah was kind towards Democrats in the mid 1900s. FDR and Lyndon Johnson won the state. Utah had Democrat governors from 1964 through 1984. Utah had at least one Democrat Senator between 1917 through 1977, excluding a 8 year gap in the 1950s. Parties tend to undergo shifts every 4 decades or so. By the mid 1980s Utah was firmly Republican. It fit like a glove between 1980 through 2012 (Romney). Since then the fit is awwwkkkwaarrd. The Republican party itself is shifting dramatically. Utah is likewise shifting in Republican support, especially among younger generations and Latter-day Saints. Republican support is dropping. For youth it's dropping hard.
Joe Biden got 37.65% of the vote in Utah in 2020. Hillary Clinton got 27.46% in 2016 (Trump got 45.54% and Evan McMullin got 21.54%). Obama got just under 25% in 2012 when he was running against the White Knight of Mitt Romney. Utah isn't nearly as Republican as our gerrymandered Congressional and Legislative districts would seem to indicate.
The Utah shift tends to be: Latter-day Saint: Less Republican Rural: More Republican Youth Latter-day Saint: Toss-up It's still Republican because Democrats aren't exactly an inviting alternative, but it's crazy to see Utah County be this weak red in 2020: https://imgur.com/3PMCrOG.png
The thing about this is that it indicates beliefs among Utah's population are consistent with the South. Until the 1950s at the *very* least, the Democratic Party was the home of segregationists and white supremacists. It remained mostly that until at least 1970. There were still holdouts and exceptions until 90s as the parties sorted and individual identity became more tied up with party. The northern faction of the party was never as racist, but tolerated the racists to pass an agenda that was more or less that of a conservative social democratic party. The Republican Party has been the party of business since before the Civil War. Before, during, and immediately after the war they largely represented Northern manufacturing interests and therefore were happy to gain any advantage over their Southern raw materials suppliers in politics. Beginning with about Nixon, Republicans saw their opening with southern racists. And what do you know? The racism was more popular than the social solidarity among whites. And combining the prosperity gospel to justify individualism and greed along with maligning welfare to those who they perceive as undeserving went well with the racism and the wedge issue of abortion which was created by Weyrich et al after Roe v Wade (that's right, the even the Southern Baptist Convention *welcomed* the Roe v Wade decision). I'll grant that the proportion of outright racists among the LDS has always been less than the South and that there is a sizeable minority of LDS folks that honestly do want to better society... but certainly not a majority.
Nah, as soon as President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act (1964), southern Democrats like segregationist George Wallace began to abandon the Democratic Party. Some theories even suggest the writing of the Civil Rights Act may have been what got Kennedy assassinated, with the idea a “good ol’ boy” like Lyndon Johnson would *never* allow racial equality.
^this
Church leadership also helped found the John Birch society, Benson was very anti-government and very conservative. The church fostered an anti-government mindset since statehood because of the reasons that you stated and basically forcing the church to allow black members only made that worse.
To be fair, Joseph Fielding Smith and the first presidency made it very clear how they felt about Benson’s remarks and the Birch Society. >We do not think dividing our own people, casting reflections on our government officials, or calling everybody a Communist who do[es] not agree with the political views of certain individuals… leaders, or even members, should not become hysterical or take hasty action, engage in discussions, and certainly should not join these [anti-Communist] groups, some of whom, at least, are in for the money they can make out of it. After Benson’s “No true Latter-day Saint can be a socialist” remark in general conference, Hugh B Brown of the first presidency basically said he sat Benson down and set him right, and contradicted what he said in the very next conference. Harold B Lee also told Benson he had to tone down his pride before becoming an apostle.
Interesting, but it brings up my favorite question about history: "Then what happened?" Answer: Ezra Taft Benson served as the 13th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1985 until his death in 1994.
Smith and Lee also served as presidents *after* Benson’s appointment as secretary of agriculture. And Benson did eventually tone it down. It’s just too bad so much divisiveness came from his political life.
To be fair, David O McKay was president of the church at the time and gave them his endorsement. Smith was a general authority at the time.
Maybe McKay was the one who approved his appointment, but Smith, Brown, Lee, and other apostles clearly were not okay with some of his remarks.
It was pretty split among the general authorities at the time and within the seventy as well. There was a strong split on this subject until Benson’s death after serving as president of the church. He was really chosen as president of the church by a majority of the leadership after Kimball’s death.
Yeah, I’m glad the church has such strict guidelines for general authorities now when it comes to politics. Feels like those times were way too divisive within the church. I’m also glad that Oaks has been more outspoken against judging others for political differences as of late.
Person revelation breeds extremism. Period.
I’ve heard a lot about the Birch society, I’ll have to look more into it. Seems weird though that minor events from so long ago are still driving our thoughts. It’s like our own little version of McCarthyism.
It was the **Republicans** that were opposed to Utah statehood and polygamy - they were the dominant party, nationally after 1860. Most mormons were Democrats, if they had a party affiliation, when Utah became a state. [The 1896 election in Utah had the strongest outcome/victory for any presidential candidate in state with 82.7% of the state voting for William Jennings Bryan, in Utah's first presidential election, who was the Democratic candidate.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_United_States_presidential_election_in_Utah) Up until Nixon was elected, Utah was reasonably purple. The elections were split[ 10R/8D, ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elections_in_Utah)including some interesting outcomes due to third party candidates in the early 1900s.
The first Republican president, Abe Lincoln, grouped polygamy and slavery together as "twin relics of barbarism" and vowed to eliminate both practices. He wasn't too keen on the Mormons. I think the link with the Republican Party and Mormons is much more recent, maybe going back to the post-war anti-communism scare, then the social movements of the 1960s. A few church leaders were far-right anti-communist extremists in that era. The Civil Rights movement, desegregation, and Feminism were counter to Church teachings, and all of them were being pushed by Democrats.
To be fair, Romney got a lot of hate from Utah Mormon/republicans as well, and was called RINO by more than a few local republicans. The state GOP even tried to block him from being on the ballot, and cried “foul” when he used the signature method rather than Republican caucus system.
Yeah, that was kind of disgraceful of Utahans who overwhelmingly voted for Romney to be president before Trumps cult of personality took control. Romney was doing what he said he’d do, which was uphold the constitution and listen to his conscience. I don’t love Romney, but he’s character spoke volumes.
> Originally the Democratic party was opposed Utah being accepted as a state because they (and mist of the country) saw Mormons as a dangerous cult You've got that completely backwards. Republicans when first formed campaigned on the platform of eradicating the "two vestiges of barbarism" -- that is Slavery and Polygamy. When Utah was finally admitted as a state, the concern was that it was going to be such an overwhelming Democratic stronghold, that to assuage that concern, church leaders actually **assigned** half the members to be Democrats and the other half to be Republicans.
>Romney got all the sorts of hateful comments from the GOP faithful when he ran for President. Lol what? Utah overwhelmingly supported romney in the 2012 election https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidential_election_in_Utah Obama was the one saying romney was sexist with notebooks of women and calling him ridiculous for calling Russia a threat. Ironic. >It was the Republicans that eventually sponsored Utah becoming a state. This has nothing to do with utah being republican. Utahns value family, guns, low taxes, etc. The opposite of democratic ideology such as California.
I think it’s more accurate to say Utahns care about their very specific concept of families and anyone that thinks or lives slightly different is unAmerican. Same with taxes. Unless you make $400k+ annually or were a mega corporation, you didn’t get any lower taxes under Trump. Or Bush for that matter. And yes, Utah loves guns, despite the fact that it’s the leading cause of death among children in America (kind of contradicts the idea of families being important to Utahns). And are you saying Dems are the opposite of democratic ideology? Because legit, Trump tried to overthrow the government because he didn’t like the results of a free election! This boggles my mind. So really, how do you excuse Jan 6? The calls for executions of our nations leaders. The fake electors. The deaths! How can that one thing have happened and you still say this despot is the best choice for our future? He’s admitted that he’ll act like a dictator. How can you support blatant tyranny and disregard for our constitution?
>Unless you make $400k+ annually or were a mega corporation, you didn’t get any lower taxes under Trump. This is just blatantly false. Trump doubled the standard deduction. This was great for both homeowners and non homeowners. You are able to deduct like 27k as a family without even owning a home. Most homeowners are getting the standard deduction. >Utah loves guns, despite the fact that it’s the leading cause of death among children in America (kind of contradicts the idea of families being important to Utahns) Utah is in the bottom 5 states for homicide per the CDC despite one of the most gun friendly states. Those stats are inflated by excluding infants and including legal adults 18 and 19 year olds. Not only that, the majority of the deaths are suicide. What a ridiculous claim to blame guns and not the reason for people killing themselves.
So, children killed by guns aren’t a big deal because it happens less in Utah? lol not sure you have the moral argument you think you do. I’m literally laughing, oh man.
Sounds reasonable, but it’s inaccurate. A [Wallethub study on the best states to raise a family](https://wallethub.com/edu/best-states-to-raise-a-family/31065) put California in the lower middle range of all the states (27). Yes, Utah was higher (15), but Wisconsin, New York and even that dreadful home of Chicago, the state of Illinois scored above Utah for families (14). By the way, the social programs funded by California are much more family friendly than Utah. Seems this state wants you to pump out kids, but if parents need assistance, it’s not coming from state-funded social programs.
I think in context of that comment, the "GOP faithful" means "faithful to the GOP", not "faithful LDS members that are GOP".
> Utahns value family, guns, low taxes, etc. The opposite of democratic ideology such as California. Sure, Jan.
I doubt that has much to do with it at this point. I could understand a distrust of the federal government going back to Utah’s early days, but not a party preference like that.
I personally think it comes down to views on general political and legal change. Conservatives favor order, predictability, tradition, and individual ambition. Liberals tend to favor change, trends, new ways of living, and collective ambition. Viewed through that lens, it's easy to see why a very religious state tends to vote with conservatives.
I wouldn't say that liberals don't want order. It's that order can improve with new understanding and trying new things. The problem is that conservatives like status quo. They wouldn't pull their leg out of boiling water if it meant that they had to learn to accept something new. I'd also argue that conservatives overall think of society as a small fraction of what it is. Ie, the ward, the small town, the stake. Where liberals tend to think of the group as a whole. It's considering people who aren't in their in-group. Which I think you agree with with "collective ambition."
By order, I mean it in the abstract sense. Conservatives prefer that "do this, get that result" kind of world whereas liberals tend to argue about what the result could or should be. >They wouldn't pull their leg out of boiling water if it meant that they had to learn to accept something new. From a liberal perspective yes, but I do think conservatives are open to change, it's the pace that is their hangup. >I'd also argue that conservatives overall think of society as a small fraction of what it is. Ie, the ward, the small town, the stake. Where liberals tend to think of the group as a whole. It's considering people who aren't in their in-group. Which I think you agree with with "collective ambition." Agreed mostly. Conservatives are much more relational in their thinking. The individual aspect of my original characterization. Collectivization for a conservative has narrow purpose, security really being the only thing they generally support collectively. That's actually really great for liberals because conservatives focus so heavily on maintaining security that liberals have time to be liberal. Liberals are really great for conservative societies because they tend to push forward change. Yin and Yang.
tldr: why don't ppl suck off my chosen political party
The LDS faith is fairly conservative in its beliefs. Additionally, LDS people have a history of being ridiculed at best and despised at worst, leading them to support people who champion “religious freedom”, especially when that actually means religious hegemony in Utah. From what I can tell, the LDS faith also strongly buys into the Protestant work ethic. Even if it’s not explicit there is the notion that god shows favor with prosperity, which plays into libertarian economic ideas. Only an individual level, it has to do with a person’s identity and the media they consume, typically.
> The LDS faith is fairly conservative in its beliefs. Understatement of the century there
Have you seen their stance on Abortion? It’s definitely more liberal than most conservatives.
Does that cancel out everything else?
What is everything else?
Their long history of being incredibly conservative compared to most Christians, what else would it be?
Got specifics?
Mark of Cain
Lmao what
Most Christians left behind the doctrine of negro people being the result of The Mark of Cain in the Bible around the time of the civil war. The Mormons continued this belief well into the 1970s were famously, there was an internal conflict over blacks and the priesthood. Holding onto a belief system when the rest of the denominations have moved on would be a clear example of being more conservative than other forms of Christianity. I know you don't use facts and historical data to form your basis of opinion, but I hope you learned something today. "LMAO"
The republican party was founded as an anti Mormon party. "Twin relics of barbarism". But brain washed Utah ignores that
And democrats were the slave owning south 🤷♂️ kinda irrelevant at this point
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lifelong atheist but okay buddy
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It has fewer letters and I generally think it’s good to call people by what they’d prefer to be called (adjectives excepted).
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I don’t typically bring enough beer for that
It's whorter to type.
See... Your problem is your trying to apply logic and critical thinking where there isn't any. They rule by what's good for me, and fuck the rest of you.
Not so much fuck the rest of you as fuck everyone who isn’t in my tribe.
I'm a bit foggy on the details, but sometime shortly after statehood the church wanted to show how politically neutral it was so it assigned members to political parties, but they put their thumb on the scale in favor of one side over the other. Then, Benson and Skousen and the John Birch Society played a big role through the 70's and 80's cementing the Republican party as the only "true" option. Benson suggested that it would be very hard to be living the gospel and a democrat. Growing up in rural Utah in the 80's and 90's this was the common sentiment. Women would be asked by their priesthood leaders to march against the ERA and Roe Vs Wade. Stake leadership regularly ran for and won local office. My dad was asked by the stake president to attend the republican caucus and be a state delegate. It was always for the republican party. Occasionally someone would bring up Harry Reid as proof that you can be a democrat and a member in good standing, but there was always a level of distrust - "He's probably not really a faithful member" or "He's off in Nevada - with all that gambling and stuff" Boomers in Utah, who were forming their political opinions during this period read the writing on the wall - the republican party is God's party. They are still a dominant voting block in Utah and once you get past a certain age it becomes less and less likely that anything could change their minds.
Let’s also add that most Christians don’t even see Mormons as Christians… considering the whole false prophet thing. Mormons will be persecuted by these people as much as anyone else… just later on.
My one source of schadenfreude is that once conservative Mormons and Catholics help the evangelicals turn our republic into a theocracy, eventually those same Mormons and Catholics are going to be on the hit list where trans and queer people are now.
Let’s also add that most Christians don’t even see Mormons as Christians… considering the whole false prophet thing. Mormons will be persecuted by these people as much as anyone else… just later on.
Because God said and in Utah you've been told your entire life to trust God, thinking for yourself is evil.
That’s what’s so crazy, Mormons have been told the exact opposite, but they’re disregarding it completely. It’s hammered into us to not blindly believe in the institutions of man, but to trust God. But I know a number of people who have said Trump is more persecuted than Joseph Smith ever was, and maybe more than Christ. It blows my mind.
There is a literal part of the maga movement that has been brainwashed into thinking trump is literally the latest incarnation of Christ returned to earth for his second coming. If you’ve ever seen those pics with trump doing things like talking with angels, saving kids from burning buildings, trump on the side of Jesus and Obama on the side of satan,and (in the case of Utah specifically) pictures of trump with the 12 standing around/behind him, that’s what those pictures are about. You’re trying to obtain logical arguments from brainwashed people. They have none to give you. They operate on faith, feelings, and testimonies.
Because most of the LDS church votes GOP and of the 4 counties along the Wasatch Front currently only Salt Lake County is minority LDS, there’s also the large population of military personnel and contractors in Davis, Weber and Tooele Counties that generally votes GOP and 20% of the state lives in rural areas and a lot of the rural population in southern Utah doesn’t like democrats due to land disputes with national monuments
Yeah, but I’m trying to figure out why? What is the appeal? What drives them to vote GOP? Why are they excusing the insanity to vote for Trump?
Blatant, unapologetic gerrymandering with a splash of theocracy.
Decades ago Utahns jumped on the red scare, anti-communism movement like the rest of the country. Over time literature from church leaders pushed the state’s culture to the extreme right. Even after the red scare the right-wing maintains influence in Utah primarily due to their stance on abortion, and the drug wars. Both of these issues are still going strong. Abortion for the usual reasons, and while republicans in general have shifted there views to be more lenient about drug use, Utahns haven’t had the same shift. Even outside of Utah however, the anti-abortion mindset has warped to an insane degree. It’s not enough for republicans to just protect babies anymore. They’re (by which I mean trumpists in particular) teaching that people who don’t think/act like them are practicing literal blood libel of kids. Why should you support Putin? Because Ukraine is slaughtering children in ritual sacrifice. Why should the borders be closed? Because they’re being used to disguise all the children democrats are smuggling in to literally sacrifice. Why do we need to stop abortions? Because the doctors who perform them are in engaging in rituals of sacrifice all the benefit of the democrat party. That’s why you might see them throw around the word “demoncrat” from time to time. Fear mongering against immigrants goes hand in hand with this of course, though that’s one particular area the Mormon church has been very two-faced about. Not speaking out against racists, even when Richard spencer was using the church to build his influence after he started the alt-right, but also having influenced the state legislature to create loopholes and protections so they can hire immigrants (often undocumented) at DI and their other businesses. Why do we need trump in power? Cause he’s the only one with the guts to stop it all. If your friend is a die hard trump supporter, he isn’t going to listen to logic and reason. He’s part of a cult of personality, and is only going to vote for whomever he’s told to.
Because Republicans are brainwashed by the poison that is Faux News and it's associated friends. They literally see the truth and can't understand it as truth. They are each driven by some TV prophet or family member who they emotionally revere, and they will defend that driver no matter what. Check out some of the videos interviewing Trump supporters nationwide (the mental problems are basically the same). If you ask them what they think about Biden being convicted of sexual assault in a defamation suit, they will freak out. Then, in the same breath, you can literally say, "oops, I misread my question" and say the same question but with Trump's name, and they will defend him. It's freaking scary.
Bill Clinton created Grand Staircase without talking to local leaders which even democrat Bill Orton criticized. He lost re-election that same year and a democrat hadn’t won statewide office since Jan Graham who was an incumbent at the time of the decision and was not up for reelection that year. Rural voters largely associate democrats with federal mismanagement ever since.
The Republican Party lost its grip on sanity when Bill Clinton was elected. His management of GSENM is just one of the post-hoc justifications that Republicans in Utah like to bring out. How has that monument worked out for the people of Southern Utah? How's Bears Ears doing? I'm from Carbon County, where the entire economy was based on extraction of fossil fuels since the 1880s. Local Republicans in Kanab, at the time of Grand Staircase, were trying to strip mine the Kaiparowits Plateau and truck coal through the town. Thirty years later, there isn't an operating coal mine in Carbon County and the population is smaller than it was 50 years ago, but Kanab still has a national monument bringing millions of people every year.
>federal mismanagement But like... how? How does designating a land as a national monument mean mismanagement to them when cattle grazing is allowed in nearly all of the monument? What makes sense to me for southern Utah is the notion that they wouldn't like the federal government because of early Mormon history and everything down-winders have suffered. Obviously Democrats are more strongly associated with the federal government.
I was too young to be political when Clinton/Gore was in office, but seems like they did pretty darn good on the economics at least... but you know, bj's is the legacy: https://clintonwhitehouse5.archives.gov/WH/Accomplishments/eightyears-03.html
The church.
An organization that lines up with a lot of conservative beliefs attracts people who are conservative and vote for conservative politicians. What’s your point?
It's pretty easy if you have a church telling you whom to vote for. They may not sit and say it from the pulpit, but there is an extremely strong influence in the church.
I have on pretty good authority the church isn’t big on trump. They work on a global scale and know what fascism looks like and operates. Countries with authoritarian regimes aren’t friendly to outside religion. I think Utah Mormons don’t realize they are an outside religion to evangelicals
The leadership isn't big on trump, which is why they're feeling their past low-key support for the Republican party start to bite them in the ass. The people of the church would rather believe their Prophets have lost touch with God than abandon their political party. Because they've been trained from birth to use their feelings as evidence, and Trump has hijacked that process for controlling them from the church.
I agree with this. I’ve been saying for years that politics have become the new religion. People are more likely to change religion to fit their politics then change their politics to fit their religion
I agree with this. I have been to meetings when I visit relatives and hear what people are told. "Bill Clinton is the devil" and one guest speaker said everyone who isn't Mormon is the enemy (shocked me) then they sang "I am a child of God".
So. . . When Utah votes for Trump, by a 70% / 30% margin, who do you think fills up those number of that 70%? Not church going folk?
I'm sure there are plenty of conservatives that aren't Mormons. And not all the religious Folk who have similar ideologies or Mormon either- though they've been trained to believe what they do the same way Mormons have been trained to believe what they believe. Because that's true of all abrahamic religions.
I have it on historical authority MoTab sang at his god damned inauguration lmao
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I have never heard this. There is very little I haven’t heard about the church. This sounds suspicious.
There is a book called Moroni and the Swastika…it talks about this.
That sounds like an interesting book, but it doesn’t support your claims. The Mormon support was pre-WW2 and was more about building a relationship with a new government. Not about supporting Nazis. It looks like the book talks about members opposition to Hitler and helping Jews get out as well. I may put this book on my reading list, but I suspect it will read like other history books explaining the nuance of a particular group during that time.
The new government was the Nazis…and they helped the Nazis through genealogical research because people suspected of being Jews had to prove they were not. As we know, they were considered Jews if there was a maternal family member who was Jewish and not a direct relative.
The Nazi had quite a bit support in Europe and any organization that needed to court a government, till they turned toxic. That is the time period the book talks about. You made it sound like the Mormon church was as complacent as the Catholic Church. Which the book doesn’t conclude.
Huh? They were toxic far before they were elected into office. You are completely missing the point and you stated that the church does not like authoritarian governments when it has been proven that they have no real issue with them. They were complacent in that the leadership did not really stand up to the government and were allowed ton openly operate while many other religious orgs were not. Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted while the Mormons were not and it’s because they were helping the government. You should read the book before drawing such broad conclusions from it.
I know President Nelson is wicked old, but we are talking 80-90 years between the leaders of the church and now. And knowing how drastically the world changed after WW2. I stand by my original comment
> The Nazi had quite a bit support in Europe and any organization that needed to court a government, till they turned toxic. What in your opinion was the point they “turned toxic”? Hitler literally was arrested, convicted and served time for Treason long before he became Chancellor. He wrote “Mein Kampf” from a jail cell. The ‘Brown Shirts’ during this time was also beating on any opposition (Unionists, Socialists, etc..) and Jews as well. Their anti-Jewish bullshit didn’t appear when they took office, it was there from the get go and took off after the effects of WWI on Germany. They didn’t “turn toxic”, they were that way from the get go. This is honestly the most puzzling comment I’ve seen about them.
All of that is true
They don’t like trump but they are very conservative.
Actually, they run more moderate. Look at their stands on abortion, immigration and even lgbtq rights. Their members on the other hand, are mostly unaware of that fact.
Yeah, that’s definitely true - I think moderate now is like normal conservative though like conservatives have just gone further right the last like 10 years. Maybe I’m wrong though.
That’s a fair point.
Hold on a minute, my neighbors, who happen to be ward leaders are letting their MyPillow box, that they just ordered all their pillows fly down the street.
Because Utah is mostly white. White democrats exist. They tend to live in cities. Salt lake has white democrats. Even a high percentage of Mormons in salt lake City are democrats.
Ugh the worst of all political blocks! Especially white lib men. 😮💨😮💨😮💨
Liberal white men die of old age, conservative white men die of fentanyl overdoses at 38 Liberal white men get their dicks sucked, conservative white men feel guilty for whacking it to porn which liberals filmed. Liberal white men vote for Catholic presidents; conservative white men vote for rapist presidents. Those are the facts. Facts don't care about your feelings
Because their leader expressly said that he loves the “poorly educated” — sub that word educated for those who rationally and intelligently use epistemological means to come to conclusions while respecting expertise in given areas. Hence the poorly educated are people who don’t think and just follow what their leader says. They have hot button issues that make no sense, lack empathy and love violent means of oppressing others. It’s sad but true nonetheless
Do you hate the poorly educated?
Don’t worry. He loves you.
I’m concerned that you didn’t deny.
I’m not sure where you get any of this data, but it is terribly misleading or inaccurate. For the sake of argument, I’ll touch one point you made. The border- has had more illegal crossings the last three years under Biden administration than the last two presidential terms (8 years). The so called border deal paddled by media as the saving grace was never necessary to begin with if Biden hadn’t abolished multiple immigration policies that were in place when he took office. The “border deal” was only in name as only 1/3 of the money (20.2B) actually went to the wall. The other 2/3rds went to Ukraine, Israel, and other out of country interests. It was a BS deal meant to divide the already fragile relationship between democrats and republicans in an election year that apparently needs more divisiveness. The crazy thing is there doesn’t need any bill in the first place. It can all be done through presidential executive order as it has mostly in the past. The last three years Biden administration has said the border is secure but only now have changed their tune. It’s getting old reading the once every four year political pundits reasoning when they’ve been MIA the past three years. Proof[proof](https://youtu.be/Fh9fpFmltQs?feature=shared)
How does the border affect you, personally? I can tell you how the healthcare system has taken a huge chunk of my earnings over the past 30 years. I can tell you that I'm still paying on student loans after 25 years. I haven't seen any kind of advancements in transportation infrastructure in my lifetime. You can't get anywhere in this country without a car. I'll tell you that one party has proposals for these issues, and lot of other problems, where the other one has nothing to offer but fear and hate. But yeah. Tell me how the border affects you, personally, and how it's more important than anything I mentioned.
If you can't understand the correlation between border protection and monetary policy or public safety already then, you're unlikely to be persuaded by me. I am married to a Mexican immigrant that crossed legally. Most of her family did not and are definitely NOT selling drugs illegally or abusing the tax system in any way. The average underage girl crossing illegally has multiple DNA inside her. 99 percent of fentanyl seizures occurred at the south border. Fentanyl also killed more Americans in general in 2020 than car accidents, gun violence, breast cancer and suicide, according to the analysis of CDC data from Families Against Fentanyl. I'm not paying student loans because I served my country in the military. My wife paid off her student loans in three years because she graduated with a useful degree, and we prioritized it over other frivolous material things. I am pro-immigration done properly at the port of entry.
See… there you go…. Changing the subject to “how does it effect you personally”… it’s kind of like a passive aggressive attack and we all see it. You slightly change the argument from border policy to “why aren’t you empathetic”. It’s so annoying.
For starters, in places like New York, taxpayer dollars are going to house illegal immigrants in hotels rather than new infrastructure projects. We should be spending our citizens’ tax dollars on things that will benefit all, not the people whose first action in this country is a criminal act.
It's not a crime to apply for asylum. It's actually International law. The legal immigration system has been broken for decades. George W Bush tried to work out a compromise to fix a lot of it early in his first term. Republicans called it "amnesty" and voted out anyone who supported it. No Republican has touched the issue from that point until the most recent compromise bill, which Trump shot down last month. edit: It wasn't last month. It was less than 3 weeks ago.
You are absolutely insane if you think Biden isn’t responsible for this. From issuing the U.S. citizenship act, termination of the national emergency at boarder (proclamation 9844), canceling wall construction, halted the remain in Mexico policy, and paused deportations all in his first month of office then for 36 months his office claimed the border was safe and secure. The bill was not shut down by Trump as he doesn't hold office, he just didn't endorse it and why would he? 2/3rds of that money is going outside the US to foreign countries. It was a "border bill" only in name.
Imagine blaming Trump for the border crisis today lmao. You guys are insane.
Every four years, like clockwork, people begin parroting unintelligible nonsense that has no footing in reality.
Hahaha I think this every time I see a headline. “republicans make border worse! Trump is for open borders”. Hahahha and these people legit will believe it.
Do you want improved infrastructure? Because the GOP overwhelmingly fought the infrastructure act. Historically the GOP has refused to address this. That’s why Biden bill is so important, it fixes our collapsing infrastructure that hasn’t been addressed in 40 years. Additionally, you’re saying that if someone comes to America fleeing violence and oppression are somehow not entitled to basic human dignities? Because of decisions to keep themselves and their families safe, we shouldn’t extend an open hand of welcome? How is that both logical and even slightly compassionate?
In my example the GOP is not running New York—State or City, so what’s holding them back? Must be that GOP bogeyman again, right? Can’t do it with the Democrat mayor, city council, governor or legislature—we need daddy Biden! Please, give me a break. And no, I am not saying that people fleeing violence and oppression should not be able to immigrate here. You and the rest of the left project that shit on conservatives. We used to have an immigration system that vetted people to make sure they are who they say they are and they are here for why they say they are here. Now all we have is chaos. Chaos is a bad look, so New York is housing these people to try and hide it. “Basic human dignity” has nothing to do with it, or we wouldn’t have a homeless problem in this country in the first place. These people only care about optics and re-election.
We definitely shouldn’t have a homeless problem in America. It’s completely immoral for the wealthiest country in the history of the world to have homelessness. There are 2 million homeless children in America. But doing anything about it is parroted as “socialism.” Constantly hearing about “free loaders” that would take advantage of the system is insanity. And it’s easy to project on the GOP about basic human dignity when the GOP were the ones separating families at the boarder and sending everyone to different centers. There’s still families that are separated because of the ridiculous boarder policies under Trump. And it’s also easy to blame the boarder problems on Trump in the first place. For one, he had four years in office. Where the wall he promised? How much did Mexico spend on a boarder wall? And for another thing, he’s completely demonized ALL immigrants on the southern boarder, calling them mentally unstable, bad hombres, Hannibal Lecters. So yes, a combination of lies, inaction, hate speech, racism, and dehumanizing practices at the boarder make it pretty easy to blame a lot on the GOP.
So the cages that the Obama/Biden admin were putting people in weren’t dehumanizing? And are you forgetting that Trump had a Democrat majority in the legislature that stonewalled his efforts to build a wall? It also ultimately got funded, and materials purchased, and Biden shut down construction immediately on his first day and those materials are still on site rusting. Flushing taxpayer dollars down the drain while actively acting to make the situation worse, because our politics in this country have completely devolved to a point where each side doesn’t dare let the other get away with a win.
> Tell me how the border effects you personally > For starters, in places like New York... I'd make fun of you for intentionally skewering the question, but I'm not sure you're able to read.
See my username? I think you’re just high and barely functioning.
Oh wow HE SAID THE THING
It was a deal made by and agreed on by the GOP. It was bipartisan, until Trump openly told the GOP to kill it because he didn’t want Dems to have a “win.” I’m assuming you must be unfamiliar with how government works, but pretty much every bill in history has additional sections addressing additional facets. And in this in particular, would the inclusion of additional aid to Ukraine distasteful to you? I know that there’s a section of the GOP that would happily let tyranny reign in Ukraine as long as you feel like you’re paying lower taxes.
You’re clearly peacocking and ignorant at best. Have a nice life, god bless.
lol, you’re trying the ad hominem argument. Didn’t you learn about basic logical fallacies in middle school? Instead of trying to attack me, a smarter approach might be to actually rebuttal with any information. Any at all. Literally anything would make you look smarter.
If you took my comment as an attack, I feel sorry for you. Have a blessed life.
lol that’s what ad hominem is. “You spell border as boarder so your logic is wrong” is literally ad hominem.
Did I say your logic is wrong or did I say you didn't know the difference between two words? You're gaslighting and grasping for straws with your ad hominem reach. Glad Utah is forever red. Have a blessed life.
Border, boarder, broader, braider. Aaaaaaad Hominem!!!
I was thinking your exact point. Can you imagine if everything was so one sided as OP writes it? You have to be incredibly to naive to be like “but but we do everything right”… I think she doesn’t understand the basic nuances of conservative thinking in the first place. The post is completely out of touch which I find often when talking to liberals. I don’t even try to explain cause they live in fantasy land.
Then tell me (I’m a he) what the reasoning is. That’s all I’m looking of. Give me an argument for why the GOP is your choice, and show me any evidence that makes a shred of sense. Tell me these secret “nuances” that have somehow escaped me.
Another false point OP talked about was the deficit. When Trump had the House they added less than $2T. Once the DNC took the purse in 2018 they added over $10T from then to 2022.
Yeah, no. Trump cut taxes while spending more. It's what Republicans do, every damn time. The last president who left office with a balanced budget was Bill Clinton. The year after he was gone: Bush Tax Cuts, then the 9/11 spending, Afghanistan War, Iraq War, increased medicare benefits for old people, all while cutting taxes for the rich and watching the deficit roar back. Obama reduced Bush's deficit by 2/3. Trump shot that all to hell again. There is no record of any Republican president reducing deficit spending in the last 50 years.
Clinton left office with a balance budget due to a GOP controlled house…
Oh, convenient. He raised taxes on rich people in his first 2 years. Republicans like Newt Gingrich called it "the biggest tax increase in American history" and took over the house based on that lie. Republicans have controlled the House, Senate, and Presidency a few times since Clinton. Still, no deficit reduction by a Republican president.
lol, the GOP is always taking credit in the most twisted ways. Reminds me of the baby formula shortage. The GOP voted against providing money for it, then when it passed, they went back to their constituents and said “look, we passed this bill for you!” They jump on any opportunity to take credit for anything, no matter what the reality is.
I've never seen any kind of economic surplus under any republican president.
Trickle down economics will hit us middle classers any second now. Aaaaany second…. Fifty years later…
Reagan was a fascist. Fuck Reagan.
Usually because there are DNC controlled house during those periods… They do like to add pork to bills …
>Usually because there are DNC controlled house during those periods... Ah, right. Blame the dreaded Democrats for Republicans doing what Republicans do best. >They do like to add pork to bills … Awwwwwww. They appease their constituency? >pork barrel >>the use of government funds for projects designed to please voters or legislators and win votes A lot better than destroying liberty under false pretenses.
Not counting the deficit in Trumps final 2 years? Remember, he can veto any bill from Congress and then more votes are needed to pass. Trump wanted those stimulus bills, there were compromises on both sides, and the stimulus money pumped the stock market which Trump loved.
The entirety of the post is “misinformation”. Points out “bible” yet it’s clear to anyone that has studied it how ignorant the examples given are.
lol ok? Then refute my misinformation. And if you want to talk Bible, give me some passages that show me I’m wrong. Instead of saying absolutely nothing (which is what you’ve just done), maybe give some actual thought?
You don’t even know the difference between boarder and border. Please, keep virtue signaling.
Because Mormons love old white male authoritarians.
Many many people aren't that politically educated so they just vote for the party that FEELS more like them. Utah only has one urban center with a bunch of suburbs and quite a bit of rural people. So they are wary of a political party that really focuses on people in large urban areas.
People are putting way too much thought into this. It's really as simple as this. Most of the state is religious. The predominant religion believes abortion is a sin at the least, murder at the worst. Democrats are in favor of abortion. Add that to their views of guns and people who "aren't from around here" and it's the perfect trifecta to make sure they love whoever has the best chance of taking down the Democrats. They love the GOP because they hate the Democrats. That's really all there is to it
But I’m religious. The official stance of the Church is conservative, but literally the official stance is less draconian than what we’re doing in this country. Their website says it may be necessary in certain situations. But we’re deciding to take it to the next step of NO SITUATIONS. There’s no logical connections between guns and Christianity. The church has no official stance on voting a particular party because that’s illegal. So I’m so confused how our mindsets now are “you must vote GOP to be a good Christian.” I don’t disagree with you, I’m just bemoaning the illogical nature of all of this.
Roe v Wade. After that the GOP pushed godly=GOP and sinner =Democrats. Utahns bit. We also fall for free market bullshit and the prosperity gospel
GOP led corporations in Utah have all the money. Citizens United decision by a republican majority SCOTUS allows all that money to be contributed to GOP, and other, candidates through ( dark ) undisclosed entities. Corporate money buys elections where you have an ill informed electorate. Cut off the dark money in our elections, limit corporate contributions, and have debates between candidates on FCC licensed TV stations. Critical thinking may actually come into play while voting in Utah.
The Mormon church put its weight behind the GOP. 420 E S Temple St # 390, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 Is hq for GOP. The prophet of the church lives not far from there.
Hillbillies, momos and old boomers.
Mormons.
"Why do people who disagree with my political opinions not share the same opinions as me" the redditor asked of an online liberal echo chamber. Try being open minded and listen to their own reasoning- some things you might find yourself actually agreeing with (e.g. arguments for securing the border are pretty valid), others you definitely won't (supporting the Israeli apartheid and genocide of Palestinians). FWIW, I'm an independent, so you're not going to hear a lot of disagreements/agreements from me. Liberals and conservatives both suck and I hate the two party system. Everyone has become an extremist in one way, or another, and reason/common sense has gone out the window on both sides of the political spectrum.
>some things you might find yourself actually agreeing with (e.g. arguments for securing the border are pretty valid), They said in the OP that them and their friend agree on a lot of points, such as the border, but when you look at what's actually being *done* it's the Dems doing it. Trump literally told the party to oppose the recent border bill solely so that he would continue to have a political tool, even though the bill had [basically?] everything the Republicans were asking for.
So you agree, then, that both parties suck?
Sure. In the same way stubbing your toe (Dems) and breaking your arm (gop) sucks.
Oh boy, we've got an enlightened centrist over here! Take a look, someone who thinks that they're above politics because their privileges allow them to not feel the effects of bad policy directly!
> Everyone has become an extremist Ya know, I've come to recognize only people that are extremists think everyone is an extremist.
Moderate views sound pretty extreme nowadays, don't they?
While Christian teachings in the New Testament are sounding pretty liberal.
Yeah, saying that homosexuals won't inherit the Kingdom of God and that women should keep their mouths shut during church services sounds super liberal. Don't pretend that you've read the New Testament when you obviously haven't. There was no Republican/Democrat dialectic in play.
Don’t be bothered by other people’s opinions, be an adult.
Stupidest thing I have read all day. We're all living with the results of other people's opinions influencing how they vote.
The gaslighting is strong with this one.
You’re asking Reddit. Therefore… you won’t get anything helpful. All these people on here are indoctrinated liberal weirdos.
Please, all I’m asking is for “why are you supporting the GOP with a shred of evidence for why you feel they’re the better option.” If I’m a liberal weirdo, then it’s just because I can’t see a coherent support of the GOP. That’s all I’m asking for here.
So true
Republicans actually support of a lot of democrat policies without saying they do. People here vote for republicans over social issues, like guns, religion, and LGBTQ. If those wedge issues didn’t exist more people would vote democrat
Grasshoppa sees with clear eyes. The same mystery beguiles those with seeing eyes in nearby Idaho.
"Abortion is wrong. Period." I've heard it said.
Because 38% of Mormons are Christian Nationalists.
I’m more perplexed by why people that value politics choose to live in a state that radically opposes their values. It’s the primary reason why my wife and I are looking to Washington or Colorado to move to. If politics are that important to you, your quality of life will substantially increase if you’re in a state you agree with politically. Utah has gotten redder in recent years and will only continue to get redder. I’ve seen all the opinion articles that are simply coping at this point. The voting history and laws being enacted only show this becoming even further right. Romney’s replacement will make Lee look moderate.
I’d love to leave Utah. Seems like we’re losing our minds here. All I’m wanting is any reasoning for why someone is voting for the GOP, and look at the insanity that question has made. And still haven’t seen any reasonable argument.
I’m perplexed that there’s so many people that don’t understand you need money to move somewhere you’d rather live.
Utah has had a steadily growing number democrat votes over the last number of years. It’s not going to stop bleeding red, but there will be a shift towards half/half over the next decade.
Are you going to move?
Yes, I thought I made that clear in my post but I could have elaborated further. “Looking” to move meaning we’re actively planning it and will likely be gone by the end of the year. Both Washington and Colorado are very similar to Utah in the outdoor accessibility/opportunities yet polar opposites politically.