Vote for Freedom, Faith, and Family

I started this post last Thursday but didn’t finish. With Early Voting starting today, November 21^st, I needed to post my recommendations for the November election (which I did here). Spoiler alert, this time, without exception, I recommend voting Republican from top to bottom. (Plus some conservatives in nonpartisan races.)

So now I’m back to this post on the presidential race. I am taking note of a video call from last week (Sunday, October 13^th) talking with members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about why good Christians—including our particular type of Christian—should vote for Trump. (I wasn't on this call; I saw the recording.) I think most Christians will find that this resonates with them as well. It’s a way to talk with friends and loved ones who see themselves as seeking the virtuous choice, but have been getting their information from, well, less than truthful sources.

Donald Trump speaks during the LDS Roundtable video call
October 13, screenshot from here

 

A Vote for Trump is a Vote for Freedom, Faith, and Family

As some of you may remember, I did not support Donald Trump in 2016 (I absolutely did not vote for Hillary; I did a protest vote in a state where Hillary could not win). In the Primary I supported Ted Cruz. I was annoyed at Trump’s way of belittling all of his opponents, and I thought the attacks on Ted Cruz were unfounded and over the top (that he was a liar, which he isn’t; that his wife was ugly, which she isn’t; that his father supported Castro in Cuba and/or was related to the Kennedy assassination, which were pure fabrications).

These are what people summarize now as “mean tweets,” although I really never went to Twitter back then. They aren’t insignificant. But Ted Cruz forgave him and endorsed him, in exchange, it appeared, for promises of conservative judicial nominations. I saw that Cruz believed he’d gotten such a promise, but I hadn’t personally gotten that promise. (It turns out Cruz saw that promise kept.)

But, worse, Trump had been, up until almost that point, as far as I could tell, a Democrat billionaire playboy, which was a repugnant image, and I didn’t see a conversion story from that to constitutional conservative family man.

Statements from Trump’s 2016 campaign aligned with my views, but I didn’t believe him—until he proved himself as President.

When he won the Primary, I was morose, believing that was the end of our constitutional republic. But the Spirit whispered to me, “Trust Me.” I didn’t know what that meant. It didn’t seem to mean I should vote for Trump, or maybe it meant that it didn’t matter at the time, just that things were not as bleak as I thought they were. And that was true; we had some pretty good years on the way to recovering from the Obama malaise. And I have come to believe that God is making good use of the unique person that Donald Trump is.

I disagreed with President Trump about the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 “vaccine,” but there was a lot to agree with him on in his presidency. He severely cut illegal immigration at the southern border. He cut regulations. The economy flourished—right up until the pandemic shutdown, which was nevertheless in recovery by election day. He moved the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. There was a lot related to that, including treaties with surrounding Middle East countries—the Abraham Accords—that convinced me of his abilities as a negotiator and statesman. He decimated ISIS, which looked more like a pet project than an enemy under Obama’s administration. And I came to admire Trump’s ability to be reverent and respectful at the right moments and of the right things. Notice his honoring Rush Limbaugh at a State of the Union address.

This is to say I strongly supported him in 2020. I was very upset at what happened with that election and severely disappointed that things didn’t get set right. I believe J6 was a setup. But whatever happened, it was not caused by President Trump inciting a riot; that is a lie. The lies that have continued during the Biden/Harris administration have been insufferable. There is so much to say against Kamala Harris (before and following her coup of Biden) that it could fill books.

But today I’d rather spend most of the time on why a vote for Trump is a vote for freedom, faith, and family.

 

Saints (Disciples of Christ) Should Seek to Vote for Trump

This past Sunday evening, as I mentioned, there was a video call featuring President Donald Trump, Glenn Beck, and Senator Mike Lee aimed at Latter-day Saint voters. The call was initiated from Prescott, AZ, and included people in Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and probably a few other invited people (or anyone the invited people knew and invited). There was a panel of other brief speakers, all of whom are prominent Latter-day Saints. In fact, Donald Trump was the only one on the call who was not a Latter-day Saint. But he was surprisingly well-versed and respectful. And that seemed genuine. We Latter-day Saints make up about 2% of the US population—much higher in those states, though.

[It was sponsored by LDS4Trump.com. I was able to see the entirety on YouTube last week, but now I don't find that video. I find only segments. The Mike Lee segment is here. Parts of speeches from Donald Trump, Glenn Beck, and Mike Lee are here. Note that President Trump's portion is audio only. The other speakers included Travis Padilla, city councilman in Queen Creek, AZ; Congressman Burgess Owens of UT; Congressman Celeste Malloy of UT; Sheriff Mark Lamb of Pinal County, AZ; Congressman Andy Biggs of AZ; Tina Descovich of Moms for Liberty; Raul Labrador, Attorney General of ID, and Warren Peterson, Senate President of AZ.]

The premise is that there are a number of Latter-day Saints who hold Trump’s past against him; he committed adultery, ending two marriages. And—“mean tweets.” OK, except, the alternative is a woman who slept her way to power with an affair with Mayor Willie Brown while he was married. And the ultimate sacrament of this woman who never bore a child is abortion up through nine months (maybe beyond). You can’t vote against Trump for his past sins without voting for Kamala with her past and current sins.

Trump, more and more, is open about his religious faith. It isn’t maybe as obvious as some of ours, but he is more open now than he used to be. And one thing about Trump: he is authentic. If he didn’t respect religious Americans and our faith, he wouldn’t say he did, because we could tell. Stories abound now of him having prayer with people while he was in office; we just didn’t hear then about those things; they were mostly private. Since he was spared, for some special purpose, by God on July 13 from an assassination, he has been both more open about his faith and more resolute about fighting the tyranny that is against us all. And I also believe he was spared for some purpose God has for him.

Senator Mike Lee speaks during the LDS Roundtable video call
October 13, 2024, screenshot from here

During this video call, Senator Lee outlines reasons to vote for Trump. He references Doctrine & Covenants 98:10, about seeking wise and good leaders for government. Then he goes on—and this first part is more of why Kamala Harris doesn’t qualify to get our vote:

Point number one that I want to make is that a lot of Latter-day Saints seem to fall into the trap of assuming that, yes, because it's a good idea and we've been admonished in scripture to seek out good and wise people to do it, that what they need to find is someone who reminds them of their bishop [congregation leader] their stake president [leader over multiple congregations in a local area] or their Relief Society president [women’s auxiliary leader] in order to support them.

Now, look, I know both of these candidates, and I will tell you right up front neither one of them is going to be mistaken for your stake president or Relief Society president. They didn't grow up in our faith, much less in our culture. They may not use the same words. They may not have the same customs that we do. Nonetheless, that doesn't mean that this supports their [the people supporting Harris] conclusion.

And after having worked with both of them for years, I can tell you, if you're looking for an example of character and decency and civility as between the two, Kamala Harris is not going to come out on top of that equation. She's just not.

If you want to talk specifics, I'd be happy to talk to you about specifics. But just as Donald Trump is not a member of the Tabernacle Choir, neither is Kamala Harris. So don't hang your hat on that.

Senator Lee’s second point is about the US Constitution, on which he is an expert. This next section compares the two candidates regarding their understanding and dedication to the Constitution:

As I look at this, and I look at each candidate's approach toward the Constitution, I don't think this is a close call, not by a mile. Whether you're looking at basic respect for the fundamental structural protections in the Constitution—the vertical protection that we call federalism, or the horizontal protection of separation of powers—those things are upstream from every other protection in the Constitution.

And remember the whole darn point of the Constitution, the only reason we have this Constitution, the only reason why anyone has any constitution, is to temper the passions of a democratic society. They are designed to be counter-democratic, because sometimes you need that in order to protect the rights of minorities: minority viewpoints, minority interests—and yes, even minority religions like ours. I'll get back to more of that in a moment.

So, the structural protection: Donald Trump has shown 100 times more understanding, compassion, and devotion to those structural protections of the Constitution than Kamala Harris has. Donald Trump understands that it was a good thing that the Supreme Court of the United States undid the tyrannical move from Roe v. Wade in 1973 in the Dobbs decision two years ago. The Supreme Court said this is not a federal issue, made a federal constitutional issue by the Constitution. Therefore, questions like these not being made federal by the Constitution are up to the states primarily, to be decided at the state and local level. He understands and respects that.

He also understands and respects the fact that it's tyrannical that most of our laws, measured by word length, page length, weight, volume, regulatory compliance, economic impact—you name it, almost any measure—the federal laws made by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats now vastly outnumber those made by Congress, notwithstanding the fact that Article 1 sections 1 and 7 of the Constitution make clear you cannot make a federal law except through Congress. Both houses of Congress have to pass it on, present it the president, before you—  All these things show Donald Trump's much more favorable commitment to the Constitution has been.

Kamala Harris, she rejects those things fundamentally. She belongs to a party that has become overtly contemptuous of things like the Electoral College, of things like the non-representative Senate, because the Constitution says that every state shall be represented equally in the United States Senate. Kamala's party is openly hostile toward those viewpoints. Then, when we get to the Bill of Rights, you look at your First Amendment rights freedom of speech, freedom of religion, redress of grievances. Kamala has sought to curtail those things, as she has Second Amendment interests.

I realize I’m quoting most of Senator Lee’s speech here, but these are important points. He next gets to religious freedom, which is of paramount interest to Latter-day Saints, as it should also be to other Christians, and other religious people:

Then, let’s talk about the big elephant in the room: religious freedom. This is one of the areas where I find most disagreement with our Latter-day Saint friends who have chosen to defend and protect and advocate for Kamala Harris, because one cannot support Kamala Harris and call her a friend of religious freedom. Those two things don't exist.

Now, the news media—including, unfortunately, to a significant degree, with an assist from the news media empire owned by our Church: KSL and the Deseret News—have unfortunately helped to sort of sanitize and gloss over Kamala Harris's legislative record. But having served with her for the entirety of her four years as a US senator, I can tell you something very, very disturbing that every Latter-day Saint should be aware of before casting a vote for president this year: she's the sponsor of a bill called the “Do No Harm Act.” And like many bills introduced by Democrats, this title is deceptive. It is deceiving because this bill is anything but one that does no harm. The purpose of the Do No Harm Act is to essentially gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Lee gives a hypothetical example of a medical school, noting that Brigham Young University, his alma mater (and mine) and in his hometown of Provo, UT, has just announced it will be adding a medical school to the university. I don’t believe BYU plans to build a hospital; for now it plans to associate with nearby hospitals, but the point is nevertheless valid:

When you have a medical school, you inevitably have doctors, you know, professors at your medical school who practice medicine, and if at some point a Kamala Harris administration were to step in and mandate either that all hospitals receiving Medicare and Medicaid funds must perform abortions or sex change operations or you name it, and BYU's medical school decided that it couldn't do that consistent with BYU's religious mission, that's an easy case for you to invoke the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. But in Kamala’s America, under Kamala’s bill, that would be off the table. And I can point to thousands of other hypothetical examples and not so hypothetical examples of where this would come into play.

He adds this summation:

If you elect Kamala Harris as our next president, you are sowing the seeds for the destruction of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and with it religious freedom itself.

The stakes are high in this election. As Elon Musk has put it (elsewhere, of course; not on this video call), if we lose this election, we may never have a free and fair election again. Our elections will be decided by the ruling regime, as in Venezuela or Russia or China.

Glenn Beck speaks during the LDS Roundtable video call
October 13, 2024, screenshot from here

This is already long, but I’d like to add just a part of Glenn Beck’s speech, about our heritage of being a Constitution-loving people:

Our faith believes in the freedom of speech. Our faith believes in the freedom of religion. Our faith—  When Brigham Young and the Saints were chased out of the country, they ended up in a faraway place that wasn't even part of America at the time, and that was Utah. And one of the first things they did was hold a parade with the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. I don't know who was there to watch it, when there weren't any streets or anything else, but it was to drive home the message that people can go wrong, but the principles of our country are true. That doesn't mean we always live up to them.

I and many others on the phone are constitutional conservatives. We don't want a theocracy or anything else. We want the Bill of Rights that have been enshrined and built our country. That's all we want.

I should mention that there is a statement from Joseph Smith—not with the full force of prophecy, not canonized, but often referred to—that there may come a day when the Constitution is hanging by a thread, and if it is to be saved, it will be because of the righteous saints who come to the rescue. President Trump referred to this in his talk; I imagine someone briefed him on it. We are at such a thread-hanging time.

This is one version of the Constitution hanging by a thread statement,
image is from Christian Fire Poppy, the portion of her video of the
LDS Roundtable that was her commentary before the clips of the speakers.

We can't stand on the sidelines. Glenn Beck was wearing a T-shirt with the Deitrich Bonhoeffer quote, “Not to act is to act. Not to stand is to stand. Not to speak is to speak.” Then he ends with this call to action for our time:

Your vote, even if it's happening in a place where you're like, “Well, it's all going to go to the Democrats,” or “It's all going to go to the Republicans,”  your vote counts. You know where it counts? In the eternities. We are all going to be held responsible, especially us with additional information. We are going to be held responsible. What did you do when the freedom of, not just your children and your grandchildren, but the children all over the world was at stake? What was it you couldn't get past? What was it you ignored? This is the time. And this is the time that we are to rise up as God-fearing people with our voices and our votes.

Quote from Ezra Taft Benson about the Constitution being saved,
which should give us hope, if we are doing our part. Image
is from Christian Fire Poppy's video, during her commentary.

Despite having diametrically opposed differences, we are to be united. What is it we can unite around? Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and our divinely inspired Constitution. We invite others to join us there. And we let go of animosities toward anyone who couldn’t see what we see. Vote. And vote wisely: for freedom, faith, and family. And bring others with you.

Early Voting Begins Monday

Suddenly the election is upon us. Early Voting begins here in Harris County, Texas, on Monday, October 21. I put out a letter to my precinct already, but I thought I’d share most of that info here for people interested in getting more informed about their ballot.

I’m going mostly to HarrisCountyGOP.org (the Republican site for the county) and HarrisVotes.com (the County Clerk’s website) for information.

 

VOTER INFORMATION

Early Voting starts Monday, October 21, and runs through Friday, November 1. Hours are 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM daily except Sunday, October 27, 12 Noon to 7:00 PM.

Polling Locations: https://www.harrisvotes.com/Vote-Centers This page allows you to toggle from Early Voting to Election Day. You can put in your address to bring up locations near you. You can vote at any polling location for both Early Voting and Election Day.

For Election Day, Tuesday, November 5, 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM. Again, use the link to polling locations above.

Sample Ballot: https://www.harrisvotes.com/Voter/Whats-on-my-Ballot

The GOP recommendation is to vote early this year, preferably in the first week of Early Voting. This is against my normal pattern, but I plan to do it. (I do enjoy seeing many of my precinct voter at the polls on Election Day, though.) The reasoning is that you want to bank your vote; if you were to get sick or have an emergency come up on Election Day, you might miss your chance to vote. Also, campaigns will target voters who haven’t yet voted during that last week of campaigning. If you’ve already voted, they don’t have to spend time and money resources reaching out to you—which may mean you’ll get fewer texts and emails (one can hope).

The short version of my recommendations,
plus there are some nonpartisan races
at the bottom of the ballot.

 

BALLOT RECOMMENDATIONS

This year there is no question that we should vote Republican TOP TO BOTTOM.

To highlight a few races, I strongly endorse Donald Trump for President and Ted Cruz for US Senate. (I was trying to get a post out about why good church-going Christians ought to vote for Donald Trump. I didn’t finish before this became more urgent. So that should come out early next week, rather than at the end of the week as is my usual pattern.)

I got this meme as a screenshot on my phone on September 2,
probably on Facebook. I can't locate the source I got it from
or the originator, but I like it.

Our US Congressman for CD38, Wesley Hunt has had a good voting record, and we should definitely keep him.

Lower on the ballot, after the judges, comes the Harris County District Attorney race; the DA is the prosecutor for the county. This is possibly (besides for president) the race most likely to affect our daily lives. Democrat DA Kim Ogg was not radical enough for the Democrats; she thought we were letting too many violent felons back out onto the streets—many on no-bail bonds. And she also didn’t rubber stamp corruption in the County Judge’s office. So the Democrats primaried her to put in Sean Terre, a truly radical anti-public-safety candidate. Fortunately, we have an extraordinary candidate in Dan Simons. We need him. If you’d like to hear his story, he spoke at the Cypress Texas Tea Party in July, which you can view here. His website is https://danforda.com/. (By the way, you can look for all candidate websites on the HCRP website here.)

Dan Simons, candidate for Harris County District Attorney,
screenshot from here

Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick has been reliable, and we want to keep her.

For Texas Supreme Court, we vetted the candidates well in the Primary (I wrote in more detail on these races in February), so I endorse Republican candidates Jimmy Blacklock for Place 2, John Devine for Place 4, Jane Bland for Place 6.

Our state supreme court structure is divided into two parts: The Texas Supreme Court covers civil cases and issues. The Court of Criminal Appeals is essentially the Supreme Court for criminal cases. Again, I endorse the Republicans: Gina Parker for Place 7, Lee Finley for Place 8.

Our State Senator for SD7, Paul Bettencourt, continues to be an excellent representative for us.

For State Rep. for HD 138, Lacey Hull has been a mostly reliable and sometimes strong conservative, and we definitely want to keep her.

Then we get into more Judicial Races. Here are the Appeals Court District races:

·        Jennifer Caughey for 1^st  Court of Appeals District, Place 2

·        Andrew Johnson for 1^st Court of Appeals District, Place 6

·        Clint Morgan, 1^st Court of Appeals District, Place 7

·        Kristin M. Guiney, 1^st Court of Appeals District Place 8

·        Susanna Dokupil, 1^st Court of Appeals District, Place 9

·        Chad Bridges, 14^th Court of Appeals District, Place 3

·        Tonya McLaughlin, 14^th Court of Appeals District, Place 4

·        Maritza Michele Antu, 14^th Court of Appeals District, Place 5

·        Katy Boatman, 14^th Court of Appeals District, Place 6

·        Brad Hart, 14^th Court of Appeals District Place 8

I won’t list all the district judges. There are many. These are the court judges within Harris County. I will highlight Michael Landrum, who has been a judge before and has been reliably conservative for a very long time. We want him back in. Video of him and two others, Lee Kathryn Shuchart and Brian Staley, speaking at the Cypress Texas Tea Party in July is here.

There are a handful of races in which we did not get a conservative candidate. Only a Democrat appears on the ballot. It won’t make a difference, but I am leaving those blank on my ballot.

There are a few other county offices:

·        Jacqueline Lucci Smith for County Attorney

·        Mike Knox for Sherrif (his talk at the Tea Party during the Primary season is here)

·        Steve Radack for County Tax Assessor-Collector

·        Danielle Dick for Harris County School Trustee, Position 3, At Large

·        James Lombardino for Justice of the Peace, Precinct 5, Place 1 (Tea Party video from January here)

·        Terry Allbritton for Constable, Precinct 5   

last half of page 4 of the ballot

NONPARTISAN ISSUES AND RACES

At the very bottom, there are some nonpartisan things on the ballot. 

Harris County Flood Control District, Proposition A: this raises property taxes to $0.04897 per $100 of property valuation, a right of $0.01581 per $100. The purpose is to maintain infrastructure, not to build new infrastructure. This wasn’t on my radar until I looked at my sample ballot. I’m leaning toward voting against, because I’m against any tax increase, pending further information. I’m asking around to make sure I’m not missing anything.

 

Lone Star College Trustee

·        District 1: Michael (Mike) Stoma spoke at the Cypress Texas Tea Party meeting October 17. No video, but I was there and got to hear him. He is the incumbent, and has served as the board president in the past term. They have a budget surplus and have been working well with Cy-Fair ISD to bring dual credit programs, including many certifications, to high school students. He has my vote.

·      District 2: I do not know either candidate in this race: Daniel “Danny” Meza or Ernestine Pierce. She is the incumbent, having served the past 6 years. Info on both here. He links to a Facebook page with no posts. She links to her website, here. While I’m not endorsing, I expect to vote for Ernestine Pierce.

·        District 3: Mike Sullivan is unopposed. I would vote for him, if there was a way to do so.

 

Harris County Emergency Services District 9

·        This is the very last race on the ballot. In this race, vote for none, one, or two candidates. The board handles our fire stations in the area. Harris County Republican Party Local Government has endorsed Jaime H. Martinez and David Farrington. Jaime was a potential school board candidate last year. He’s reliably conservative, although he didn’t reach the top four candidates we were vetting. I’m happy to see him find another way to serve the community. And David Farrington is a long-time local conservative. I served with him on the SD7 Platform Committee last spring. They both get my vote.

The False Prophet of the Great and Abominable Church

Greg Matson, of CWIC Media, had a conversation with Dan Ellsworth, who has written a book defining Marxism so that Church members can recognize it for what it is: Marxism: A Latter-day Saint Perspective. While this is aimed at a Latter-day Saint audience, I think most of it would be fully applicable to other Christian readers as well. Ellsworth has been frustrated with Church members (few, but still too many) who, for whatever twisted reasoning, espouse and support Marxist ideas—some knowing the roots of their ideas, but also many not knowing. He wanted a way to give them the knowledge they needed, so he wrote a book to make that information dump in the simplest way.

Greg Matson (left) and Dan Ellsworth talk about Marxism,
screenshot from here

About fifteen minutes into the video, there’s a two-minute segment I want to share, and then we’ll talk:

Dan Ellsworth: Antonio Gramsci, he was he was an Italian socialist activist after Marx, who just fell in love with Marx's theories, also traveled to Russia and saw what Vladimir Lenin was doing with the Russian Revolution and you know the Bolshevik Party and stuff. And he thought a lot about, you know, what is really going on. OK. Marx offered—he functioned kind of like a prophet, like, you know, foretelling the future of the world and society.

 

And so, after he died, you know, you have people like Gramsci who had come to follow his teachings. They're sitting there saying, “Wait a minute.” OK. “This is not all happening the way he envisioned. So how do we make sense of this?” Right? And he looked to Russia, to what they were doing, what Vladimir Lenin was doing, and he saw that there was a contradiction between how Vladimir Lenin was doing Marxism versus how Marx taught Marxism.

 

And here's what Antonio Gramsci said; he was talking about the Russians, and he said, “They are not Marxists. That's what it comes down to. They have not used the Master's works.”

 

OK, I'm gonna stop right there. He calls him the master.

 

Greg Matson: Yeah.

 

DE: So let that sink in. Right? To draw up a superficial interpretation, dictatorial statements which cannot be disputed. Now pay attention to what he says here: “They live out Marxist thought, the one which will never die. The continuation of idealist Italian and German thought and that in Marx had been corrupted by the emptiness of positivism and naturalism.” So Gramsci is saying Marxist thought didn't originate with Marx, will never die. It's going to keep going after Marx, did not originate with him either. And in Marx, he said, it had actually been corrupted by some of his biases.

 

So Gramsci saw that there's this pure kind of current of thought that is actually the real Marxism. OK? That's amazing for a Marxist to admit, right? Because, when you understand what Gramsci is saying there, then the word Marxism, like the real meaning, starts to become clear. It's not, you know, it's not Karl Marx's economic theories about communism. Those are part of how he envisioned, you know, this Marxism playing out in kind of the economic sphere. But Marxism is something different. It's a whole— It's kind of a formula that predates Marx and will always exist.

 

GM: Yeah, that's interesting, because—and we've had this discussion before—going back into, you know, let's call it gospel history, scriptural history. I think we've talked about Cain and Abel before. I can't remember.

 

DE: Yeah, we might have.

 

GM: Yeah. And then, of course, the war in heaven.

 

DE: Yes.

 

GM: And what you have there. And I've got, you know, some interesting thoughts there also. But it's almost as if, as you say, you're—when you talk about Marx's interest and veneration of—honestly, veneration of Satan—then and you get this idea with the restored Gospel of, well, he's kind of in tune with him, right, in a sense of how—what is the philosophy of Satan.

 

DE: Yeah.

 

GM: Right? And what does he want. It's, if you parse out, if you critically think about the war in heaven and the plans that are presented there, it's hard not to draw a conclusion that this, as you're describing, this undercurrent that Gramsci is speaking of, is way— You know, it existed way before we even had the Earth.

 

DE: Yeah. Absolutely. That's what becomes clear when you dive into this stuff.

Karl Marx didn’t invent Marxism? No. Karl Marx was an admirer, a disciple, you might say, of Satan. He wasn’t an atheist; he knew God existed but supported Satan’s intention to thwart God.

This seems insane, and you could probably argue that he was. But there are things in his society that Marx used to develop his own sense of justice. Ellsworth talks about how, during the 1800s, during the Industrial Revolution, conditions were pretty ugly:

DE: You have a lot of families being broken up to work in factories. You have child labor. You have a lot of actual, like, real exploitative business practices going on in Europe and other places. And so—I think it's important for us to recognize that people like Karl Marx saw those things in the world and hated that unfairness.

Ellsworth points out that, you can’t go thinking Marx was this benevolent guy trying to make humanity better. His personal life shows a mean, vicious, often vindictive person. With all his notoriety, only a dozen or so people were willing to show up at his funeral.

Karl Marx in 1975, image from Wikipedia

But for many people, they’re drawn to Marxism still, not because they’re outright satanists, but they are drawn to Marxism as a possible solution to terrible conditions. For most of us, working conditions have improved since the early Industrial Revolution, but people still react to what they view as unfairness. People in poverty-stricken countries are often susceptible to a Marxist regime coming in and promising a better world. Mao did that in China, for example. Then, of course, because Marxism isn’t just a proposed economic system, because it’s actually satanist, the revolutionary force turns on itself. The disciples who dedicated their lives to the cause are tortured and killed. You might say, that’s not a bug; it’s a feature. Marxism ends in misery and massive death. Always. Because it is actually an evil thing. It just disguises itself as caring, to lure people in.

Today, people who’ve been indoctrinated with Marxism in college think it’s new, edgy, and cool. And they say things like those former Marxists just didn’t do it right. Just like Gramsci said of Marx himself.

What caught my attention in the conversation was that the idea we call Marxism is older than Marx, older even than our world. Ellsworth supposes that, during the War in Heaven, which Satan waged and lost, causing him to be cast out of heaven for his rebellion, that even then Satan (he was called Lucifer then) used the benevolent lure: “I’ll make sure no soul is lost” and then under his breath, by taking away their ability to choose and replacing it with coercion; and “I’ll make everyone equal,” no matter whether they do work or do nothing. For some reason that appealed to a third part of the spirits in Heaven, who chose Satan even when they had lived in God’s presence. And maybe even then they told themselves they were the good guys.

"Paradise Lost" by Gustave Dore,
I previously used this in a post called "Agency"

Ellsworth boldly calls Marxism the Great and Abominable Church. This is a term used in the Book of Mormon [1 Nephi 13:6]. I think it can be used interchangeably with other terms for the same thing: the Whore of All the Earth [1 Nephi 14:10], the Revelation 13 beast rising out of the sea, the beast from Daniel’s dream [Daniel 7:7] with the ten crowns, secret combinations [Ether 8:24]—along with more modern terms such as the worldwide cabal, or the Deep State. (I wrote about the Rev. 13 sea beast here, as well as a couple of times this year.)

While Marxism may be only a part and not the whole of this beast, I think these all refer to the same thing. In Revelation 13, the sea beast has one head that is mortally wounded, and yet the beast revives. This is symbolic, and there are various theories as to the meaning. But I have speculated that we thought we had given a death blow to Marxism in World War II; the Nazis were defeated, along with Axis powers of Italy and Japan; communism was an enemy to the free world and utterly shamed in pretty much all social circles; the Soviet Union eventually collapsed and released its various states from its total domination; even China entered into trade with the world. And then, in this century, it has revived. Emphases and forms are slightly different, but Marxism is fully alive again. 

So it might be useful to look at what qualifies Marxism as a church that is Great and Abominable. You may have noticed that Satan is a counterfeiter. If Christ’s gospel is the true Church, Satan’s church is going to have parallels. Wherever Christ builds and grows, Satan’s way will tear down and destroy. 

We’ll do a side-by-side comparison in a bit, but first, Ellsworth explains the Marxist process. Marx started with property: some people had it and some people were oppressed, obviously by those who had property. He wanted to do away with property, to flatten everything, not of course really understanding that humans have a God-given right to the fruits of their labors; to steal the fruits of their labors is to steal the portion of their lives spent building up that surplus over their subsistence. But Marx hated that some people could gain property while other could not or would not gain as much.

The pattern is to find something and tear it down. Ellsworth outlines the formula:

Marx had a formula. He said there's property—and in his case he was talking about capital and private property ownership. That's this thing that is kind of exclusive. And then society builds this thing called a superstructure—that is, you know, all of our customs and traditions, and our ideas about economics and law and religion and those things. And we protect the ownership of private property, right, through this ideology, this system called capitalism that “maintains oppression of ordinary people.”

So the formula is to take the thing that seems to benefit some and then call those that have it the oppressors. Gramsci suggested, instead of just property, use culture. Out of this comes the Frankfurt School. Ellsworth continues:

And then you have it branching into these fruits of Critical Race Theory and Queer and Gender Theory, where now the property is being normal in the case of Queer Theory. Queer Theory hates the idea that anything is considered normal, and so they have this ideology of, okay you know, “They're trying to protect normal, which is a thing that only some people have access to through an ideology called heteronormativity,” right. And with Critical Race Theory, “They're trying to protect racial privilege using white supremacy,” right. So it's this formula that Marx established, he kind of synthesized, that is now applied to all of these different other things. And in the case of feminism, well, what is the property? It's male privilege or male power or things like that, and the ideology is patriarchy. It's the Marxist formula.

So the purpose of Marxism is to tear down whatever can be considered an inequality, so that those with whatever it is are oppressors of those without that thing—and the only cure is to tear down the society that has these inequities.

Now, for the comparisons (based mainly on their conversation, with a few things I may have added):

 

Christ’s Church—the Real Church	Satan’s/Marx’s Church—the Counterfeit
Conversion—an awakening, coming to know it’s true.	Conversion—an awakening, “wokeness” to awareness of patriarchy or heteronormativity or whatever.
Rituals: baptism, sacrament, temple covenants of obedience, sacrifice, purity, consecration—showing dedication as a disciple.	Praxis (action oriented toward changing society): Pride parades, for example, or displaying BLM stickers, pride flags, and symbols. Abortion—child sacrifice—is considered a sacrament; live children can also be sacrificed to the ideology (transgender surgeries, for example).
Confess and repent of sin; become a better person.	Denying power greater than self, denying authority beyond self—However, there must be submission to the ideology. Sin is to be the oppressor, as defined by the ideology, from which there is no repentance, but there must be continual confession of this sin with accompanying expressions of guilt.
Love one’s neighbor.	Attack and criticize relentlessly in the service of Marxist ideology.
Love God with devotion.	Love the Party and specific authoritarian figures with full devotion.
Spread the gospel; share the gospel, the tenets of the religion; invite others to come unto Christ.	Spread the new Godless covenant of relentless political activism. Inculcate the tenets of the religion through all forms of communication and education/indoctrination—and shut down (censor) all opposing words.

Ellsworth wrote the book for Latter-day Saints that have been seduced by this counterfeit religion—to give them a better view of what’s happening, and maybe change their minds, to re-convert to Christ. Marxism—in any of its forms—is completely incompatible with the Gospel of Christ. It is anti-Christ.

Ellsworth mentions a talk at a recent conference by Faith Matters, their Restore Conference 2024, intended, as they say “to inspire and nourish faith.” I’ve heard the occasional podcast and think they’re probably sincere. Anyway, one of their speakers, Neylan McBaine, he says “takes a feminist approach to the gospel and talks about patriarchy.” He says,

 

You know, I read her talk. And I don’t know if the people who heard her talk understand that they were being invited on the Marxist covenant path in that setting.

Marxism tears down; if they are saying Church leaders are patriarchal oppressors, they are saying the Church—the restored Church of Jesus Christ—should be torn down. That is the end point; there is no other eventual conclusion.

Greg Matson mentions a professor who was invited to speak at BYU (he’d done a podcast on this some time ago) who took the Book of Mormon and suggested that the word iniquity should be interchanged with the word inequity; the implication is that only inequity is a sin, and all else who could do wrong doesn't matter. Matson says, “I just want to pull my hair out, that this is being taught to these 18-22-year-old students.” Parents do not spend their savings to send their kids to the Church’s flagship school to have them indoctrinated into the Marxist covenant path. That absolutely must not happen.

Three years ago, Jeffrey R. Holland talked to the BYU faculty about the need to teach clearly the prophetic truths in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” I heard his words and recognized truth and love. But he got way too much pushback from those who have entered that Marxist covenant path and probably don’t even recognize that they have been seduced by lies.

If you think that socialism, communism, Marxism, Critical Race Theory, the LGBTQ agenda, DEI, abortion, feminism, or any other branch of this Great and Abominable Church is too political for you to deign to discuss, you may want to rethink that. Politics is just one place where it plays out. But it is the War in Heaven continued right here. And you really don’t want to be on the wrong side of that war; we know Christ wins, and we want to be on His side. Sitting on the sidelines is not an option; you must declare your team, and be a player on that team. At the very least speak up and cheer for the winning side.