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.