A Conservative's Case for Harris

Next Tuesday's presidential election is a referendum on the kind of government we want, constitutional or not constitutional

(photo courtesy of Chris Stevenson)

These remarks were delivered on Thursday, September 26 during a Zoom call for Latter-day Saint supporters of Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. Alongside Chris, the Utah Monthly editorial board reiterates its stance that Donald Trump poses a direct threat to the rule of law, free and fair elections, and a fact-based public dialogue. He is an aspiring despot whose campaign is fueled by grievance and misinformation. Let’s defeat him at the ballot box on November 5.

Thank you to everyone who has spoken and will yet speak for providing hope and energy for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who are experiencing disorientation within and grave concerns about the trajectory of America during this election season. This is especially true for those who, like me, are politically conservative. I want to acknowledge those who are coming to different conclusions than what I lay out here.

In 2016 I left the Republican party because Mr. Trump was preying on Americans’ deepest fears and prejudices, pitting us against our neighbors, cultivating a strange and fearsome personality cult, and demonstrating behavior that, at least in my opinion, was completely unbecoming of a possible president of the United States.

Then came 2020 and Mr. Trump’s attempt to stay in power after losing a free and fair election by subverting the constitution’s electoral college clauses, thus weakening the citizens’ devotion to the Constitution. This was also a full embrace of complete dishonesty as he lied, and continues to lie, to himself and others that he won the election, taking advantage of millions of good people.

I believe now what is needed perhaps most of all is to engage in the ministry of remembering, in order to help save the union. What I mean by this is to keep alive the memory of the president, who is now running once again for that office, who broke his oath to preserve, protect, and defend the United States Constitution and of a president who is not committed to honesty and whom one cannot trust.

In the simplest terms, it means being truth-tellers. It means that this election must be approached differently than all others, requiring reservoirs of both courage and energy, especially from those who sympathize with conservative political principles. We are being asked to engage with political platforms, plans, and policy proposals—politics as usual. But this is NOT politics as usual, though that is exactly what the former president and his campaign want us to believe. They want us to forget. It is in this way the current election is “pre-political”—it is a vote for the kind of government we want, constitutional or not constitutional.

If we do not actively and persistently remember, we are not only masking his aggressive and dangerous assaults on the foundations of our government, we are normalizing them, and this, I believe, puts the Constitution in the gravest of dangers.

Kamala Harris’s supporters gather for her speech at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, October 29 (photo courtesy of Adam Stevenson)

We are the only faith that I know of that has scriptural cannon stating that Jesus Christ helped establish the United States Constitution—this is a glorious burden that we cannot escape. Others may find excuse to disregard the Constitution when it gets in their way; we cannot.

In 1838 Abraham Lincoln warned:

Is it unreasonable . . . to expect, that some man possessed of . . . genius, coupled with ambition . . . will at some time, spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.

Distinction will be his . . . object, and although he would as willingly . . . acquire it by doing good as harm; yet, that opportunity being past . . . he would set boldly to the task of pulling down.

Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence. Let those materials be molded into general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws: and, that we improved to the last; that we remained free to the last.

The weighty responsibility to prevent the normalization of presidential behavior ruinous to the democracy we revere is now upon us. We can do this, I know we can. Paraphrasing Herb Brooks’s encouragement to his 1980 Olympic hockey team when they were playing the Soviet Union, indisputably the world’s greatest hockey team, having won the gold medal in 1964, 68, 72, and 76: “We can beat this guy!”