This is amazing and very well written/articulated. Thank you. Utah should absolutely know better. I was interested about the full Brigham Young quote, so if anyone else is too, I’ve copied it here. It’s more damning than I expected…
“The worst fear that I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and his people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty, and all manner of persecution, and be true. But my greater fear for them is that they cannot stand wealth; and yet they have to be tried with riches, for they will become the richest people on this earth.” — Brigham Young
I respect the thought and emotion you’ve poured into this piece, but I think here’s another perspective worth considering. Utahns aren't casting their ballots based solely on a candidate’s personality or past indiscretions. For better or worse, they’re prioritizing policy over character because they feel the stakes for their families, businesses, and communities are higher than ever.
I don’t believe it’s about complacency or ignoring morality. Utahns, like many Americans, see their votes as a shield against policies they believe could harm their livelihoods and freedoms. While Donald Trump may embody many flaws, voters in places like Utah County often weigh those against what they view as a threat to the principles they value, such as local governance and economic opportunity.
This is not simply a matter of prioritizing policy over character, I don't think, because Trump has enacted plenty of harmful policies (contesting the results of the 2020 election, separating families at the border, issuing an executive order to ban persons from Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States) that a voter implicitly endorses when they vote for him. So we at the Utah Monthly are not saying that Utahns should not have voted for Trump because he is utterly bereft of character (though he certainly is), but rather because his actions have undermined the United State's liberal democratic system. The stakes don't get higher than that.
We of course can't speak conclusively about the motives of Utah voters, but the point we wanted to make was that given the threat that Donald Trump poses to core constitutional principles, there was no legitimate reason to vote for him. Is protecting local governance and preserving economic opportunity (and note that there's little reason to believe that only the Republican Party is interested in preserving economic opportunity) worth the enormous institutional, international, and moral costs of a second Trump presidency? From our vantage point, absolutely not.
Thank you for this. Powerful articulation of the particular blame Utahans bear in this devastating election result.
This is amazing and very well written/articulated. Thank you. Utah should absolutely know better. I was interested about the full Brigham Young quote, so if anyone else is too, I’ve copied it here. It’s more damning than I expected…
“The worst fear that I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and his people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty, and all manner of persecution, and be true. But my greater fear for them is that they cannot stand wealth; and yet they have to be tried with riches, for they will become the richest people on this earth.” — Brigham Young
I respect the thought and emotion you’ve poured into this piece, but I think here’s another perspective worth considering. Utahns aren't casting their ballots based solely on a candidate’s personality or past indiscretions. For better or worse, they’re prioritizing policy over character because they feel the stakes for their families, businesses, and communities are higher than ever.
I don’t believe it’s about complacency or ignoring morality. Utahns, like many Americans, see their votes as a shield against policies they believe could harm their livelihoods and freedoms. While Donald Trump may embody many flaws, voters in places like Utah County often weigh those against what they view as a threat to the principles they value, such as local governance and economic opportunity.
Thanks for the comment, Parker!
This is not simply a matter of prioritizing policy over character, I don't think, because Trump has enacted plenty of harmful policies (contesting the results of the 2020 election, separating families at the border, issuing an executive order to ban persons from Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States) that a voter implicitly endorses when they vote for him. So we at the Utah Monthly are not saying that Utahns should not have voted for Trump because he is utterly bereft of character (though he certainly is), but rather because his actions have undermined the United State's liberal democratic system. The stakes don't get higher than that.
We of course can't speak conclusively about the motives of Utah voters, but the point we wanted to make was that given the threat that Donald Trump poses to core constitutional principles, there was no legitimate reason to vote for him. Is protecting local governance and preserving economic opportunity (and note that there's little reason to believe that only the Republican Party is interested in preserving economic opportunity) worth the enormous institutional, international, and moral costs of a second Trump presidency? From our vantage point, absolutely not.