I have an online subscription to The Economist, usually quite a rigorous, thoughtful and thought-provoking magazine. Although well to the right of my own views, it tries to tell things as they are and contains some of the best journalism you'll see anywhere.

I was a bit dismayed therefore to read this one:

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/04/29/why-utahs-conservatism-is-better

If it's behind a paywall for you, tell me and I'll post the main parts (it's rather long).

I'd be very interested in your comments, RfMers. I thought it was a shameless plug...

Much love to all

Tom

'Tis behind a paywall.


ETA: Greetings, Thomas!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2021 04:03PM by Lot's Wife.

"Why Utah’s conservatism is better
The Mormon right has not followed white evangelicals’ descent into grievance politics

One of the few uplifting notes of last year’s election season was struck by the candidates for Utah’s governorship. “Win or lose, in Utah, we work together,” said Christopher Peterson, the Democrat, in a humorous ad featuring him and his Republican opponent. “So let’s show the country that there’s a better way,” said that rival, Spencer Cox.

Now Utah’s governor, Mr Cox seems to be keeping his pledge. The upbeat 45-year-old is winning plaudits for his pragmatism and evenhandedness. After Utah’s Republican legislature demanded an early end to its mask mandate, he negotiated a month-long extension, with exceptions for schools and businesses. He issued his first veto of a bill sponsored by his brother-in-law (it was an attack on social-media firms and probably unconstitutional).

He is popular with Democrats as well as Republicans—as Utah’s governors tend to be. Gary Herbert and Jon Huntsman had similar records. Though Utah is one of the most conservative states, the relative moderation of its Republican leaders has helped make it one of the less polarised. “We have a history here of wanting to bring the other side to the table,” says Mr Cox.

An illustration of that was a deal between gay-rights and religious-liberties activists known as the Utah compromise. A textbook legislative trade-off, which recognised the rights of gays in employment and housing while permitting churches not to marry them, it has been cited approvingly by both sides in a budding row over Joe Biden’s support for new lgbt protections.

Another sign that Utah conservatives are different is their aversion to Donald Trump. The former president did better in the state last year than he did in 2016; but worse than any other Republican candidate in a two-horse race since Barry Goldwater in 1964.Though some leading Utah conservatives have warmed to him—including Senator Mike Lee—Mr Cox is among the many who remain opposed to Mr Trump and his grievance politics. “We’ve created something that we used to criticise, the victim culture that now exists on the right,” said the governor, more in sadness than anger.

The results of Utah’s functional conservatism are impressive. The state is as welcoming to immigrants as it is to investors—and one of the fastest-growing in both population and output. The main explanation for it is signified by the needle-like spires that pierce the Salt Lake City skyline. Over 60% of Utahns, and a bigger majority of Utah Republicans, are Mormons. This makes them members of a church imbued with little of the pessimism evident elsewhere on the religious right. To the contrary, where white evangelicals—the Republicans’ biggest constituency—harbour the wounded sense of entitlement of a group hurtling from cultural primacy to the margins, Mormons exude the confidence of a once reviled but now thriving minority. Founded in upstate New York in 1830, by a 24-year-old visionary called Joseph Smith, their religion is one of the world’s richest and fastest-growing. It claims to have almost 17m members in 160 countries.

The church, to which most Utah Republicans belong, is deeply conservative yet sometimes adaptable. It was behind the Utah compromise, a concession that ended up reaffirming some of its architects’ Mormon faith. “If you’re a true Christian, you want to love your neighbour.” concluded the leader of Utah’s Senate, Stuart Adams, who had previously opposed gay rights.

Sadly, a comparison between the Mormon and evangelical churches also suggests how hard it will be for evangelicals to follow the Latter-day Saints’ lead. The big difference between the two is psychological and rooted in their divergent histories. “My great-great-great-grandparents’ home was burned to the ground by a mob in Illinois,” said Mr Cox. “You don’t forget stuff like that.” That past not only explains Utah’s openness to immigration. It represents for Mormons a parable of existence as a sacred struggle, demanding humility and accommodation with a hostile world. Unlike aggrieved evangelicals, says Richard Mouw, a leading evangelical theologian, “Mormons are not angry, they don’t want to win, they just want a place at the American table.”

Mormons’ and evangelicals’ distinct perspectives are also a product of their churches’ organisation. The decentralised nature of evangelical America has allowed worshippers to sort themselves into racially and otherwise homogeneous congregations. This has in turn led them to elevate cultural over spiritual concerns. By contrast, Mormons’ centralised institutions underpin their greater pragmatism and openness to diversity.

They must worship at their local church and are urged to provide alms and other support to poorer neighbours. This helps explain why Utah has the lowest wealth inequality of any state. It also promotes empathy over righteousness; the church’s missionary tradition does the same. To that end, Mr Cox did a stint in Mexico; Mitt Romney in France. And this structure is overseen by one of America’s tightest, and more enlightened, church hierarchies.

Senior Mormons are considered to be “prophets, seers and revelators”. The current ruling trio were formerly a pioneering surgeon, a justice of Utah’s Supreme Court and a Stanford business professor. Their example in getting promptly inoculated against covid-19 helps explain why Mormons, who tend to be more observant than white evangelicals, are also likelier to get vaccinated.

Saints alive
For the literary critic Harold Bloom, a fan of Mormonism, it was the “authentic version of the American religion … [which] yet may prove decisive for the nation”. Something similar could be said for the pragmatic politics the church endorses.

Utah conservatism is a reminder to the American right of its more expansive, optimistic past. It also offers a warning of where Republicans’ current pessimistic course may lead. Almost half of Mormons under the age of 40 voted for Joe Biden."

Not the Utah or the Mormons I know.

The author seems to have cherry picked information to make a pre-conceived point. Seems to know nothing of the Theocracy that is actually Utah as the author makes Mormons seem flawless and everything THEY say they are.

Mormons are playing a better game than they used to I would say. They basically had no choice however as they learned to choose their words more carefully.

I think the article is correct. The Mormon church, excepting a significant minority, is traditionally conservative and not Trumpian. The focus isn't really on the Mormon Church as we know it--hence the glossing over our complaints--but about the difference between Utah and the recent populist phenomenon.

The details may be wrong but the main point is, I think, perceptive.

I also think Mormons are accommodating. It’s important to your humility when you’re better than everyone else.

There's a difference between the mormons in SLC and the rest of Utah. Most of Utah is solidly behind Trump. The fact that SLC is not predominantly mormon tempers the mormon and government leadership a good bit.

I count 13 major victories for Satan in that excerpt.

Obviously biased. I’d check to make sure the author wasn’t a Mormon, looking to recruit. When an organization has a $100 billion trust fund, that tends to buy quite a bit of favoritism from conservative rags.
But the fact is, no demographic supported Putin’s Puppet for President in 2016, more than Mormons, except ‘White Evangelicals’.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/
(Pew didn’t break down ‘white Mormons’ because that’s an oxymoron)
The article praises Mormons for their openness to diversity, when the white supremacist cult is 3% black while blacks make up 11% of the US population. So no surprise blacks are the under represented race in the racist cult, by a factor of almost 4, meaning, if it were not a racist institution, it would have about 4 times more black population.
https://www.pewforum.org/2009/07/24/a-portrait-of-mormons-in-the-us/

Your data indicates that Mormons favored Trump over Clinton. The Economist article doesn't dispute that. In fact, the Economist is making a different point.

What it is saying is that the strength of Mormon support for Trump is lukewarm, that Mormons are more traditional conservatives than populists. Thus "the former president did better in the state last year than he did in 2016; but worse than any other Republican candidate in a two-horse race since Barry Goldwater in 1964."

I hope you can see that the magazine's conclusion and yours are not mutually exclusive.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2021 07:13PM by Lot's Wife.

I get the point, I’m just not buying that Mormons are any less racist than white evangelicals, when Mormons are just fine with publishing white supremacist scriptures and perpetuating the bogus racist myths MORmONism is founded upon.
They like to pretend they’re more open to diversity than their super racist country bumpkin kissin cousins South of the Mason Dixon Line, but in reality, they’re more racist. At least the Southern Baptists had the good sense not to canonize their racism and call it “revelation from God”.

Well then you are addressing a point the article did not touch upon. You can't say they are "obviously biased" for making claims they did not in fact make.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well then you are addressing a point the article
> did not touch upon. You can't say they are
> "obviously biased" for making claims they did not
> in fact make.

Here,” By contrast, Mormons’ centralised institutions underpin their greater pragmatism and openness to diversity” it makes that claim.
The big difference is I think to me, that Mormons put up a big facade of civility and politeness towards society and make it seem like they “love everybody, the just hate the sin”
Then everything that’s not Straight, white, male authoritarianism, is a sin to them.
Openess to diversity? Lol, that’s a lie in a cult that won’t let women wear pants to church or hold their babies during a blessing.
In a cult that hates gays and has the blood of suicide epidemic amongst gay MORmON kids on its hands?
In a cult that still publishes the most racist scriptures of any religion I know of. Do you know of a more racist religion than MORmONism with a more racist set of scriptures?

That AND they use the tired old canard, ‘one of the richest and fastest growing religions in the world” which is bullshit.
Richest? Sure, they have a $100billion slush fund, paid for by my poor 5 generations of my family, for a fraud. We were defrauded and this cult continues defrauding friends and family and driving a wedge in our family because of this abusive cult, which has left deep scars on our friends and our families and still inflicts damage.
And as long as it does, I’m going to speak I’ll of the lord’s anointed and laugh as loudly as possible while speaking the truth about this abusive doomsday CULT, not pretend it deserves to not pay taxes because it is some kind of a great institution because it’s keeping Wall Street rich!
And the Muslims and ‘Nones’ got them beat by a long shot in terms of fastest growing religions!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2021 08:50PM by schrodingerscat.

Sure, the article got a lot of details and/or nuances wrong. But you are again missing the point.

The point is that Mormons are more traditional conservatives than they are Trumpians. That message, despite your protestations, is correct.

Unfortunately “Traditional Conservatives” are no longer in control of the GOP, which is now wholly owned by Putin’s puppet, so Mormons support Putin’s puppet more than any other demographic in the name of ‘conservatism’.
I love the irony of that!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2021 10:45PM by schrodingerscat.

You are not in danger of excessive nuance.

Wow, Soft Machine, you so rarely start a thread I just had to take a peek. (I'd like you to do it more often). :)

Re the article (thanks for posting the excerpt):

Done& Done says: "Seems to know nothing of the Theocracy that is actually Utah as the author makes Mormons seem flawless and everything THEY say they are."

Good point. An outsider can think they've gathered accurate information but it's easy to go away with only the impression the church reps want to give and not a more informed and comprehensive analysis. Too, it's easy to miss details and nuances of a religion's doctrines and practices. The author writing "everything THEY say they are" can be the result.

Too, I can see why SC (in a post above) says the author could be Mormon, due to this most positive write-up, except for an erroneous reference he made, that an outsider can be excused for misunderstanding. He said that "senior Mormons" are "prophets, seers and revelators". Unless I, as a short term "convert", have it wrong, that phrase refers only to the top-3 guys (unless it's only a reference to the top-most guy?). Also, enlightened non-Mormon readers may assume the phrase "senior Mormons" to include females which we know that, of course, it does not. (So the phrase should be "senior male members").

As for the article, some thoughts:

Re the "Utah Compromise": It's difficult to understand how a government can legislate employment and housing rights for the LGBTQ2 community yet allow churches to discriminate against them, and this being considered a successful compromise. Just the word 'compromise' indicates that the rights acknowledged are not comprehensive. I can somewhat understand how the leaders and members of a church think they should be free to exercise their own beliefs, even if they are discriminatory (although perhaps church adherents would not consider them so) and people are free to choose not to attend or join if they don't like it. But maintaining practices that are considered discriminatory in the outside world is obviously unfair and regressive. However, I also can't see how an outside body, even a government, can force a church to change its foundational beliefs.


The article states "The results of Utah’s functional conservatism are impressive. The state is as welcoming to immigrants as it is to investors — and one of the fastest-growing in both population and output. The main explanation for it is signified by the needle-like spires that pierce the Salt Lake City skyline."

1. Is it true that Utah is welcoming to immigrants? (If so, immigrants from all areas or is there a strong preference for certain ones?)

2. The explanation is the spires? (i.e. Mormonism, I guess) The temples? This is the sentence that could cause a reader to think the author of the article is Mormon. Mormonism is welcoming? I have the opposite impression. The missionaries can act like instant best friends unless you're not interested in their message, or until after you get baptized, when they move on, and members are so committed to their busy-work they don't want new people to have to deal with who take up more of their time, an already rare commodity for members in that church. I also found their message dark and the temple strange and oppressive. My lingering impression from my few visits is of dark rooms, annoyingly repetitive get-up/get-down instructions during the ceremony, as well as the stupid and pointless changing of the temple gown ties from one shoulder to another (am I remembering that correctly?) - what in the good hell IS that? - as well as the rush through the celestial room (no chance to sit down, ponder, catch your breath, have a chat, gotta keep moving through and out) and the massively, incredibly, unbelievably boring film (or even the live session) and especially the "go down" phrases repeated endlessly by the temple characters. So it's a Just No Thanks from me.


Article: "Founded in upstate New York in 1830, by a 24-year-old visionary called Joseph Smith, their religion is one of the world’s richest and fastest-growing."

Another example of why a reader could think the author is Mormon - calling Joseph Smith a "visionary". Ha!

Also, being one of the world's richest religions isn't necessarily a positive attribute or one that makes it special or different or indicative of anything except their well-honed ability to get money out of people who believe it will be of benefit to themselves and others. (Having the bulk of the wealth sitting in a vault doesn't endear church leaders to me. Although I read a post here that said they had recently donated some of the money for vaccines or other COVID relief, iirc).


Article excerpt: "The church, to which most Utah Republicans belong, is deeply conservative yet sometimes adaptable. It was behind the Utah compromise, a concession that ended up reaffirming some of its architects’ Mormon faith. “If you’re a true Christian, you want to love your neighbour.” concluded the leader of Utah’s Senate, Stuart Adams, who had previously opposed gay rights."

Misleading. The Mormon Church made a concession towards gay rights? They apparently endorsed the Utah Compromise, an agreement which continues to allow churches to promote their anti-LGBTQ2 beliefs. I'm unclear too on how this agreement affirmed anybody's Mormon faith, as the author states. Because they think the church has done a good thing?? We read here often how the church's stance on this issue deeply wounds LGBTQ2 folks, some to the point of suicide (and we know of beloved RfM posters who have endured the pain of this Mormon belief and practice, some of whom are tragically no longer with us). If you want to love your neighbour you don't abhor their very existence.


"...Mormons’ centralised institutions underpin their greater pragmatism and openness to diversity."

Openness to diversity? I'm actually speechless on that point.


"This [tithes/donations] helps explain why Utah has the lowest wealth inequality of any state."

Does it?

As an aside, why are church leaders well off while many members are not? Pay your tithe FIRST is an oft-repeated refrain in Mormonism. I certainly heard it often enough from the bishop who advised me to tithe first, before paying bills. What terrible advice! Only if you're well off can you even think that makes any kind of sense. Some people pay their mandatory tithing and go short on all of life's essentials because of it. Not the leaders though!


"It also promotes empathy over righteousness; the church’s missionary tradition does the same. To that end, Mr Cox did a stint in Mexico; Mitt Romney in France. And this structure is overseen by one of America’s tightest, and more enlightened, church hierarchies."

The church's missionary tradition promotes empathy? You have to shake your head. Maybe this guy IS Mormon?

I know I've told the story countless times of the debacle of my baptism. I know it's ridiculous from an outsider's perspective to even care but for me it hurt and humiliated me for a long time. My friend who got me into the church in the first place (and who baptized me) ended up telling me "It's your fault". Oh yeah. Empathy indeed. My fault for caring. Or something. I don't even know.

And Mormons have one of the "more enlightened church hierarchies"? God help us all.


"Their [big-3] example in getting promptly inoculated against covid-19 helps explain why Mormons, who tend to be more observant than white evangelicals, are also likelier to get vaccinated."

Mormons are more observant than evangelicals? Is this correct?

True enough, it's a good thing that Mormon leaders are setting the example of being vaccinated.


So. That's what I think.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2021 08:04PM by Nightingale.

I have an old school paper subscription to the Economist and I always value its rationality and hard-headedness. I find it pretty centrist as it general proclaims market economics with a fair slice of social conscience.

Unfortunately it takes so long to get to me from Singapore (where the ASia-Pacific version is printed) due to our reduced postal service, that it is often well out of date by the time I get to it.

This article wouldn't have been written by a Mormon, rather by somebody who didn't have close experience of the religion, and is much more interested in politics than religion in any case.

As a side note, I found the magazine to be less relevant from about 2015 onwards, as the world and especially the US, started to shift into decidedly non-rational political directions. Its confident predictions were often confounded by new populist reality, and it therefore became less useful. I'm not sure that it has yet recovered.

It's still a great way to get current affairs summaries from all around the world, and its writing style is still distinctive and eminently readable.

I agree with this overview.

The Economist is right-of-center in the UK and most of the rest of the world, left-of-center in the US. It was blindsided by the populist surge in the US (and even, to a lesser degree, in its coverage of the UK) but remains insightful regarding most of the rest of the world. The editorials are meant to be provocative and sometimes border on barmy, but they succeed in stimulating thought.

There's no way the magazine would get the details of Mormonism right, but I think the political point is correct. Mormonism depends on immigration, a traditional reading of the constitution, and family values: the opposite of what the populist movement represents. Trump is a threat to the church's interests.

Totally non-objective right wing rag.

Great reporting but the opinions and objectives informing their final analyses are not the same as mine.

I felt that the article was a puff piece for Utah mormons - and the end was shameless propaganda.

Not a subscriber then, Dave?

Of course. The Mormon Church is a corporation with a CEO that views himself as a citizen of the world. The modern church has a globalist mindset.

The article is full of sweeping generalizations. Yes, I agree that it reeks of the author making shortcuts and interviewing only the designated representatives chosen by LDS, Inc. I doubt the author interviewed the people on the streets. I agree that the author looked at SLC, and not the more rural areas of Utah.

The author didn't mention women! Don't get me started. Utah is one of the worst states, when it comes to equal pay for women, or for any other women's rights, for that matter. "The Economist" is a men's magazine, and women don't have much influence in the economy, so they aren't worth mentioning.

We who live in Utah know that Mormons appear to be very "welcoming" to newcomers, at first, because they think they can convert them. When people refuse to join the cult, the cult members shun them--bigtime. I would never define any Mormon as "welcoming" or friendly to someone who is outside the cult and likely to remain so. In business and in friendships, people in Utah seem to stick to their own smaller ethnic and socio-econimic groups. I just don't see them intermingling, and intermarrying here.

Yes, it does seem like this is article just more PR reporting, coming from LDS,Inc.headquarters. I would define the reporter as "lazy."

Start with assumptions and the objective belief, then cherry-pick the data.
No original thought and no creativity required.

Sometimes they're worth the electrons wasted; most often not.

" “If you’re a true Christian, you want to love your neighbour.” concluded the leader of Utah’s Senate, Stuart Adams, who had previously opposed gay rights."

What about Prop8?

Elder Berry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> What about Prop8?


The church had nothing personal against Prop 8; they opposed it on a purely inhumane basis.

"Lexington" is James Astill, University of Oxford (Exeter, English, 1992) and University of Tokyo. I don't have much reason to think he himself is a Latter-day Saint.

That said, another James Astill, age 15, travelled west in the John Hindley handcart company in 1855, with his parents and siblings. That family originated near Birmingham, which appears to have a greater concentration of the surname today too.

Could the author be aware of distant LDS cousins? This needs more research.

Tyson

The church creates organizational loyal worker ants or worker bees. The beehive is the Utah state symbol. The Economist is about business and so is the church. Of course the magazine is going to like the church the church is everything they love. Making lots of money by exploiting a bunch of worker bees and breeding more of them for the future.

That is it really. The article is economist tunnel vision that is narrow in scope but pretends to be thorough by dragging the Evangelicals into the mess making religion the key component of an economy.

Evangelicals never liked Mormons. The number one reason is Joseph Smith was involved in folk magic and channeled new scripture.

Mormons have not always been patriotic. They swore Oates of vengeance against the United States for the lack of help they got regarding persecution Missouri. They were smug when the civil war broke out saying what’s left after the war would seek out the Mormons for help and the Mormon men would marry the widows of the dead soldiers.

Later the church became more patriotic because the church gained more benefits than not being so. Now the church is more globalist. We are a worldwide church and the current prophet likes to call himself a citizen of the world.

The broader point about Utah being more in tune with recognisably traditional Republican values rather than Trumpian populism, is accurate. But representing Joseph Smith as a 'visionary'is hardly credible. And as for 'more enlightened church hierarchies'...I need to lie down in a dark room.

You're right.

Perdition Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And as for 'more enlightened
> church hierarchies'...I need to lie down in a dark
> room.

This gave me a good belly laugh.

I made this point too re the hierarchy statement. My instant reaction was no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Now it just occurred to me to say that if it is true that CoJCoLDS has an enlightened church hierarchy (i.e. the Big-3 and downwards through tiers of autocratic/domineering leaders, all male) what a terrible indictment of other religious groups. {{groan}}

Utah is more sensitive to conservatively spiritual love of money.

Well, he did have plenty of visions. Perhaps the comment was a little ironic?

Joe was always a little sketchy on the details. As is the CoJCoLDS.

So IOW, Romney trumps (ha) Mike Lee overall while they all get to claim they are diverse?

Here's a good sense of the state of the republican party in Utah. https://www.rawstory.com/mitt-romney-2652847971/

The leadership of the church may think one thing, but the Utah republicans are all in for Trump.

What a fawning, vomitous puff-piece!

Visionary = Dillusionary in Reformed Egyptian ya know.