Mormons and Gentiles and Jews and Gentiles

Is there an LDS voting bloc? 

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A statue of Brigham Young outside the historic Mormon Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

I’ve been writing about Mormons—members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have grown uncomfortable with that word—in U.S. politics for a long time, and I still haven’t really answered my first question: 

Is there an LDS voting bloc? 

In general, LDS voters (I will not type “LSD,” I will not type “LSD,” I will not type “LSD”) look politically a lot like evangelicals with similar racial, economic, educational, and geographic characteristics. While many of the more rigorously orthodox Christian communions do not think of the LDS church as being precisely Christian (what each religion thinks of the others can be a touchy subject—ask an Orthodox Jew if he thinks his Christian friends are monotheists) the LDS voter is, on paper, typically so much like a white evangelical (U.S. Mormons are overwhelmingly white and non-Hispanic) as to be politically identical. 

Usually. 

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  1. Mathias

    Well, I suppose I'm really late to the party. A couple of points, Kevin, on a generally excellent newsletter:

    You stated that "You can pull anything you want out of the Bible—the Bible is famous for that." Also something to the effect that it is unwise to claim that the basis for morality (how we view right and wrong) is to be found by "look[ing] to principles taught in the Bible". Might I point out that the very fact that the Bible can be misunderstood implies that there is in fact a correct understanding, and that the Bible is not merely a Rorschach test. If a man is, as you put it, "capable of misreading the Bible and misapplying its principles", then the possibility must exist of properly reading the Bible and properly applying its principles. If there was no proper application to be made, then it would be meaningless to speak of misapplication. Your complaint against the percentage of Americans who claim that they look to the principles of the Bible for their morality ought to be (and perhaps is) that they are not looking hard enough, not that they are looking in the wrong place.

    If we are not to examine the principles of the Bible for the source of our morality, then pray tell, where are we to look? That is not to say that we will find what we are looking for infallibly, or that we will perfectly understand what we do find, or that we will apply the principle properly. Human beings make mistakes. But the Bible remains perfect, and its principles are in fact the source of external objective morality. The difficulty is that we cannot easily perceive those principles in their true essence and full implications, and if we did, we probably wouldn't like them very much as they would reshape our own lives beyond our comfort zones.

    The second point is brief. The apparent incongruity between most of the groups which identify themselves with Israel and their attitudes toward the Jewish people is actually quite natural. They are either claiming to have become a junior adjunct to the Jewish people (a hard pill to swallow), or they are claiming to have replaced the Jewish people as the new and improved 'Israel'. They usually wish to take on the mantle of 'persecuted victim' status and express their sole right to the particular rights and privileges ascribed to Israel. In either case, you can see how animosity would grow toward those pesky elder brothers, the original Jews who just refuse to go away.

    The anomaly among those disgruntled Israel-identifying groups is the LDS church, which despite its often fiery historical reputation, always expressed friendliness and kinship toward Jews. No one can be sure why that is, but one does not look a gift horse in the mouth and all that.

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    Christopher Jenkins

    I'm a week or two late, but wanted to comment. I'm LDS, raised in AZ, but moved to UT about 5 years ago. Voted for Evan McMullin for senate, over Mike Lee, although not enthusiastically. His flip-flopping on conservative issues irks me. Mike Lee's complete transformation from a Trump skeptic to a Trump sycophant was just too much for me, though, and the Captain Moroni comparison encapsulated the whole thing in a nutshell.

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  3. Gregory.Taggart

    KDW, we’re not uncomfortable with the word/name Mormon. We’re simply trying to stress that ours is the Church of Jesus Christ and not the Church of Mormon. It’s an effort to remind ourselves and others that Christ is our head and our redeemer.

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    Witt Case

    The Church coming out in support of the Respect for Marriage Act and then Mitt Romney supporting, Mike Lee and Mike Crapo opposing illustrates the schisms happening politically in the church at this time.

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    David Burke

    “McMullin’s charge against Lee was that of sycophancy toward Donald Trump, up to and including indulging the president’s attempts to nullify the 2020 presidential election and thereby stage a coup d’état under legal camouflage. If Utah punished Lee for this, Utah was right to do so. McMullin, himself a member of the LDS church, was not shy about putting the argument into moral terms.”

    If Mormon Utahns were punishing Lee for being a trump toady and traitor, one would think he would have been voted out entirely. Winning with 53% seems hardly anything more than a slap on the wrist.

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  7. Krane

    When you write "Some goods are not substitutes," I think of an old M*A*S*H episode where the colonel is dictating a letter to Supply to complain about ordering rectal thermometers and receiving spark plugs.

    "Both useful items," he said, "but hardly interchangeable."

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    1. GenZConservative

      In another episode, they couldn't get an incubator but a jukebox or a pizza oven were fine.

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    Narwhal

    Somewhat on the topic of the LDS, Utah is set to adopt a new flag. Maybe.

    I’ve seen some discussion of it and a video breakdown of its elements. What I haven’t seen mentioned yet is that it would prominently feature the colors of red, white, and blue in a tri-color design.

    I don’t claim to know a great deal about Utah and the LDS, but I think I know enough to recognize the positive significance of this.

    https://www.hjnews.com/news/local/new-design-for-utah-s-state-flag-is-one-step-away-from-being-approved/article_f1922e24-61f1-11ed-b328-3f2848c9fdcd.html

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    1. Clark.Monson

      I hadn't heard that (and I'm originally from Utah!). As long as they keep the beehive, I'm good with changing the flag--it's one of the most boring in the US. Not completely sold on the new design, which looks more like a marketing logo than a flag, but it beats the current iteration.

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    Richard Maxton

    We understand that one needs a great deal of education to be a good historian or a good physician, but we ignore that one needs a great deal of education to be a good citizen, a good father, a good mother, a good neighbor, or a good friend.

    Understated line of the year.

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  10. Tom Doniphon

    I must object: I don't know who Rogan is because of Fear Factor; I know who he is because of Talk Radio.

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