Commonly Asked Questions
Q. You say you are a conservative Republican and yet you plan to vote for a man whose party supports abortion. Isn’t that quite a stretch?
A. I am personally opposed to abortion. However, I recognize that the abortion question is complex and morally ambiguous. Honest, sincere, upright people can be found on both sides of it.
In civil society, it is crucially important for us to try to see and understand the other side of such issues—without necessarily sharing them. We must learn to talk to one another and stop shouting.
The idea that a woman has a right to choose her own destiny is closely related to other rights we cherish—such as free speech and religious liberty. Still, it clearly conflicts with another cherished right, that of the unborn fetus to life. There are many such conflicts of rights in our world. Most of them are simply irresolvable. We must try to do the best we can with them and make our own individual choices.
In any political party there will always be those who embrace the other side of such issues. Many Democrats do not like abortion. Many Republicans do not like their party’s stand on gun control or climate change. It is the nature of democratic politics.
This is why the Brethren have counseled time and again that: “Principles compatible with the gospel may be found in various political parties, and members should seek candidates who best embody those principles.”
Q. Why did you write your letter to the Arizona Mormons? And why did you address it to “Mormons” rather than “Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?”
A. I wrote the letter when I learned two important things on the same day. First, that members of the Church living in Arizona and Nevada might actually decide the 2020 election—depending on how the cards fell—and second, when I learned that Vice President Pence had gone to Arizona and taken it upon himself to speak for the First Presidency on behalf of Donald Trump. I simply wanted to take issue with that.
I used the term “Mormons” rather than the formal designation of Church members because I realized that the letter might get a broader distribution than Church members alone. Most people outside of the LDS community simply don’t recognize the formal name of the Church. Eventually they will.
Q. You seem to imply in the opening paragraph of your letter that you have some sort of special relationship to the General Authorities of the Church. Do you have such a relationship? Are you speaking for the Brethren?
A. Please let me assure you that I have no special relationship to the Brethren on this or any other matter—and I am certainly not speaking for them. I have worked with several of the Brethren over the course of my career at BYU, as described, and I have learned some important lessons from them. Let me quickly share two of those.
First, I have been profoundly impressed by their sincere patriotism, and by their concern for ethical leadership in government. And, second, I have been impressed by the connection they see between the American Founding and the Restoration of the Gospel. Believe me, they do believe in the Constitution as an inspired document.
Q. You keep using the term “democracy” in describing the United States. Isn’t it true that the American Founders disliked and distrusted democracy? Didn’t they prefer the term “republic” to the term “democracy?”
A. You are right on both counts. The Founders distrusted democracy because it had proved to be unstable and irresponsible in ancient times. Yet when they used the term “republic,” it had a fundamentally democratic meaning for them, that is government of, by and for the people as a whole. They assumed—wrongly as it turned out—that property restrictions on voting would make for an electorate that was better educated, more responsible, and more “virtuous” (a word they used a lot) than the inclusion of every single adult, which is what we do today. Even so, they wanted government to represent all Americans. The ideal had a long way to go before it hoped to become a reality.
Q. You profess to be a conservative Republican, yet you fail to support a conservative Republican administration. Why?
A. I do not believe that Donald Trump is a conservative. Nor do I believe that he is a Republican. I believe that he is “the available man,” a cheerful opportunist who will serve the highest bidder. He has been a Democrat, an Independent, and now, so he says, a “conservative Republican.” I doubt it.
The real opponents of President Trump are not the liberal Democrats but the real conservative Republicans—like me. Real conservatives want to conserve the principles and purposes of the American Founding. That’s what the word means.
No real conservative supports budget deficits in the trillions. No real conservative winks at tax-dodging. No real conservative supports tariffs and trade wars and economic flimflam. No real conservative disrespects America’s war heroes, captured or not, or scorns those who fell in battle. No real conservative turns his back on our historic allies and sucks up to tyrants like Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin. No real conservative supports wholesale lying in public office, or strong-arming a weak nation like the Ukraine in order to cop a political advantage, or calling upon an adversary to help undermine a democratic election.
Real conservatives speak for that older, finer America, the one I grew up in, the one that got us through the Great Depression and the World Wars, the one that the Founders visualized while they labored through the long, hot summer of 1787 to work out the American Constitution.
When I was a kid in that America, patriotism came first and party came second or third. Nowadays it often seems to be the other way around.
No, Donald Trump is not a conservative Republican.
Q. Politics in America has grown ever more bitter and divisive over the thirty years. Why should we single out this election to complain about bitterness and divisiveness?
A. We are living in a time of crisis. Our country is in grave peril. The question isn’t just about politics anymore, it is about patriotism.
I promise you, if something bad happens to the United States of America, you won’t care which political party you belong to.
If something dreadful happens to our Constitution, you won’t care who is or isn’t sitting on the Supreme Court.
If something really horrific befalls our democracy, you won’t care about Roe v. Wade one way or the other.
Our house is on fire! We’ve got to put out the flames on November 3. Then we can start to think about rebuilding the house—and finding our way back home.