Which is stronger, Mormonism or Ultra Conservatism?
They have become the same thing. Bannon's comments will be explained away as necessary for the Alabama campaign (I expect a liberal Mormon blogger to post about this soon, lathering us in nuance and suggesting Patrick Mason's book). But let's not forget that Bob Bennett got thrown out of the senate by the tea party.
The Church's approach to Trump and his movement is what drove me finally to resign my membership after more than 10 years of total inactivity. I always thought resigning was just a gesture, which it is, but I realized in the end that it is not a meaningless one for the individual. My head could no longer contain the awareness that my membership in the LDS Church inherently associated me with an organization that had no problem with Trump and
even offered tacit support to his campaign. The Church will exert tremendous pressure on members over
a damned building project in Provo, but Dallin Oaks couldn't ask his brother Bob (a former general authority himself) not to speak at a Trump rally? They couldn't exert pressure on Julie Beck to just stay at home that one day? These assholes had spent decades telling women to stay home! That was a tacit signal to faithful Mormons that it was ok, even a good thing, to vote for the Orange Pussy Grabber.
The Church has its moral priorities and has defended its right to interfere in the public domain when those priorities were on the line. Fine. But the tacit support last year, the silence this year, and the recent photo op with the Pussy Grabber amid the giddy glances of Hatch, Eyring, Nelson, to say nothing of the Relief Society president willingly grasping the hand that has grasped so many women unwillingly—all of these confirm to me that my choice was the right one. I have my moral priorities too—truth, rule of law, individual rights, fairness and equity, justice, liberal democracy, the sanctity of courts, respect for traditional institutions, respect for education—and they don't align at all with a Church that supports such a contemptible and hideous regime.
The Church hierarchy drives the culture of the Church in part, but since it is ultimately made up of people from that culture, it is also driven by it. Seeing the comments over there reminds me that all of this "never Trumpism" among Mormons is pure horse crap conjured up by people whose main problem is that the word "pussy" makes them squeamish. After some fiery talk, Romney practically threw himself at Trump, Flake voted for the tax bill and thus lived up to his name, and meanwhile the Church has put its stamp of approval on this fake president. Even if people do voice their disagreements with Trump, his cult followers in Mormonism can easily shut down any moral arguments by pointing to a smiling Eyring: the Church has made it ok to support him. Yes, I know they don't want to appear partisan—although thanks to the tax bill they'll be able to do so without any problems soon—but that just gets back to my reason for wanting to resign. The Church will throw its resources and manpower behind a campaign to keep 1% of the population from getting married, but they are totally silent when it comes to an oligarchic coup spearheaded by an authoritarian bully. They even go farther than that: they allows themselves to be co-opted. Because all they had to do was ask Bob and Julie to stay home that Saturday, because all they had to do was
not take that picture on Monday, it is clear where their ultimate sympathies lie. Of course they support Trump, and unlike his wives they can rest easy under him, as this post-coital photo-op shows, as long as he guarantees their right to flout federal regulations and interfere however they wish (i.e. "religious freedom").
The only thing about Mormons and Trump that is more galling to me are the self-righteous Mormon intellectuals who claim to be liberal. For them, this is all merely "troubling' and "problematic." But you idiots need to shut the “F” up and support the Brethren, or shut the “F” up in general, or ideally blow some wind behind your rhetorical sails by resigning. The Church doesn't take you seriously because the only thing your sincere about is your nostalgia for a more innocent version of Mormonism. No one else should take you seriously either. As it is now, your whining blogposts and
laughably self-indulgent open letters to Donald Trump, in which you pose as spokeswomen and men for all Mormons, have as much as credibility as Jeff Flake's speeches.
