Right before the first one began, I had already decided not to watch it. I didn’t think I could tolerate another shrill, partisan attack from Democrats typified by the almost unbearable Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. 

In David French’s article, This July Fourth, Meet Three Americas, he labels the three Americas “the red, the blue, and the tired.” That last descriptor fits me perfectly—firmly entrenched among “the tired.” I’m among the many who feel completely battered by both the far left and the far right. As French describes this large group, they represent:

The two-thirds of our neighbors and citizens (from across the political spectrum) who are fed up with polarization, forgotten in public discourse, flexible in their views, and still believe we can find common ground. … The exhausted American does not make a religion out of politics and is thus at a disadvantage when confronting the ferocity and zeal of the true political believer. The exhausted American is hungry for simple decency and will seek out friendships on the left and the right, so long as respect trumps differences. Even the most extreme disagreements are manageable so long as a friend is willing to listen and learn, and you’re willing to listen and learn in return. 

That’s me. Yet my husband turned on the first January 6 hearing, and I walked into the room a few minutes in. I quickly realized that this was something entirely different than what I had expected. I was struck by the calm, measured establishment of facts discovered from interviews with some of the people closest to the former president. I realized I needed to give this a chance.  I ended up watching it all. 

Some who have refused to watch the hearings have called them a “political ploy” and a Democrat “hit job” and have debunked the value of the hearings because there has been no defense presented. The original proposal was for an explicitly bipartisan committee, but Senate Republicans blocked it by filibuster. As far as witnesses are concerned, those who would defend President Trump have either refused to testify or have taken the fifth when interviewed under oath. Still, virtually all of the witnesses have been Republicans.

Many of these sessions have honestly left me shaken and in tears after hearing details about the lives of honorable people that have either been destroyed or badly wounded. And I’ve learned a lot about the day I did not understand before.  Yet, given the continued insistence that the hearings have simply been a partisan attack piece, many conservatives have simply ignored them. For those who didn’t have the time (or stomach or interest) to watch, I’d like to highlight 8 summary conclusions that feel are especially important for any of us to consider—each of them represents facts that, in my mind, are widely-supported enough to be broadly accepted even by conservatives:  

1. Former President Trump kept rejecting an increasingly clear election outcome despite being advised to concede by some of his own official advisors. In hearing #1, we heard details about how White House officials informed the president that his claims of widespread voter fraud were false.  Former Attorney General William Barr said, “I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was B.S. … And I didn’t want to be a part of it.” Ivanka Trump testified under oath, “I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he was saying.”

In hearing #2, we also witnessed footage from under-oath interviews with Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, senior adviser Jason Miller, and multiple lawyers. All the witnesses were Republicans, and most were part of Trump’s inner circle. They all repeatedly tried to tell Trump the truth—that the outlook was bleak, he should not declare victory on election night, he was going to lose, and that his election fraud claims were “bogus and silly.” 

Yet while multiple advisors and aides were trying to convince Trump that the stolen election idea was folly, other confidants were continuing to look for evidence that would reverse the election outcome. The former President consequently went down a rabbit hole of increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories. Bolstering Trump with these theories were Rudy Giuliani, lawyer Sidney Powell, John Eastman, and former trade adviser Peter Navarro.

Those with authority followed through with all due diligence to check up on all of Trump’s theories, which continued to lack corroborating evidence. None of these investigations found more than a few votes’ difference from the original counts. Eight prominent conservatives—including former federal judges, two former senators, and former Solicitor General Theodore Olson—recently released a detailed report that carefully examined each claim of fraud made in the wake of the election. They went through the legal challenges and noted that 34 were dismissed, in some cases voluntarily by Trump’s legal team, before they ever reached a hearing. 

Despite all of this, thirty percent of Americans still believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. (Of course, concerns about fair elections go back many years, to Gore v. Bush and beyond; and there is a legitimate conversation we can have in this country about electoral integrity and security that involves different, thoughtful perspectives). In the weeks preceding the inauguration (and following it, too), there were additional efforts to block the new government from functioning, such as refusing to allow Biden to get the daily intelligence briefing. And remarkably, even last month (July 2022), Donald Trump himself has contacted officials in Wisconsin to try and reverse state-specific results. 

2. The former President did not take quick or sufficient enough action to stop the unfolding events. There’s been lots of debate about security leading up to January 6 and the final protocol that day—including some suggestions that President Trump authorized more security ahead of time, which was declined by the D.C. mayor. In hearings #1 and 8, however, there was presented evidence to suggest that on January 6 itself, President Trump did not take adequate action to stop the January 6 melee.

The hearing presented never-before-seen footage of the attack, including from police cams, and it was a jarring experience to see the violence. Police officers attended the hearing, and many were in tears. There were 150 wounded, several so badly they haven’t yet been able to return to work. One officer described it as “a war scene” for which they had never been prepared. Yet as Liz Cheney noted, “Trump gave no order to deploy the National Guard that day and made no effort to work with the Department of Justice to coordinate and deploy law enforcement assets. But Mike Pence did each of those things.”

This most recent hearing #8 of the summer (commencing again in September) focused on the 187 minutes during which the attack on the capitol took place and what President Trump was doing during that time. Many members of his staff, outside parties, and even his family pleaded with him to do something, to tell people to disperse and leave. He chose not to act. After the Secret Service thwarted his desire to join the protest, he went to the dining room connected to the Oval Office, where he watched Fox News coverage for 2 hours.

In hearing #6, Cassidy Hutchinson reported overhearing a conversation that day between White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and chief-of-staff Mark Meadows: “I remember Pat saying to him, something to the effect of, ‘The rioters have gotten into the Capitol, Mark, we need to go down and see the President now.’ And Mark looked up [from his phone] and said, ‘He doesn’t want to do anything, Pat.’”

It was possible for Donald Trump at any time to go to the podium in the briefing room and give a forceful message that would dispel the riot. Sarah Matthews, Deputy Press Secretary to the President, who resigned the evening of the riots, testified that it would have taken President Trump 60 seconds to get there—with the press corps gathered in a matter of minutes. Yet the President delayed, with Pat Cipollone testifying that President Trump made no phone calls to anyone who might be able to quell the unrest at the Capitol. Trump didn’t speak with the attorney general, secretaries of defense, or homeland security that day. He was calling senators to push them to delay or end the electoral process at the capitol. 

Leader McCarthy phoned the President to plead with him—saying his own staff was running for their lives. The President refused to do anything, saying yes, his supporters were pretty upset. Joe Biden joined the plea on TV. 

The President finally relented and agreed to make a statement when the National Guard had been called by Mike Pence, and reinforcements were arriving. But he refused to read the script that had been written for him:

Instead, he toned down his condemnation of the events and mostly expressed his empathy and love for the people who had gathered and related that a singular event had happened—the election had been stolen from him and from them. His final tweet seemed to insinuate that January 6th had been not only a memorable day but a successful one.

3. Trump knew his supporters had weapons yet still encouraged them to go to the Capitol. In hearing #6, Cassidy Hutchinson spoke as a witness based on her role as an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows—her office was just feet from the President’s. She was present for many of the discussions leading up to January 6th and on the day itself.

Among other things, Hutchinson testified that Trump was informed that some of his supporters were in D.C. armed to the teeth. On the morning of Jan. 6, she said, Meadows and Trump were informed that Trump’s supporters came to his “Stop the Steal” rally armed with weapons—pepper spray, knives, brass knuckles, stun guns, body armor, gas masks, batons and blunt weapons, the committee detailed. The committee also played police calls reporting people with AR-15s. Hutchinson said Tony Ornato, the deputy chief of staff who served as a liaison for the Secret Service, told Meadows on the morning of Jan. 6, “something to the effect of ‘And these [expletive] people are fastening spears on top of flagpoles.’ ”

It’s true that President Trump said at the rally that if people were going to the Capitol, to do it “peacefully.” Yet he did not discourage people from going. Hutchinson testified as well that Trump knew members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were armed—and shared details of how he wanted to join them specifically in their march to the capitol. Hutchinson provided second-hand reports of his anger at being kept from joining them.

4. Vice President Pence faced real danger, in large part due to the president. The third hearing focused on Vice President Mike Pence, who rioters were just 40 feet from at one point, many chanting “kill Mike Pence.” Yet Pence refused to evacuate with the Secret Service but stayed to finish the certification of the election.

In the final summer hearing #8, events were reviewed that minute by minute demonstrated the growing panic among security agents protecting Mike Pence, who thought things would quickly escalate to a life or death situation. As tensions ramped up, Trump tweeted that Mike Pence had betrayed them, further inflaming the crowd. “Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done,” Trump tweeted, aware at the time that rioters had breached the Capitol. Matthew Pottinger, a decorated Marine intelligence officer and Deputy National Security Advisor to the President made the decision to resign at that moment.

The President wanted Pence to reject the electors or throw the election back to the states—intending to bring in a new slate of electors to cast electoral votes for him instead of for Joe Biden. But, of course, Pence did not have the constitutional power or authority to do what Trump expected him to do. Pence’s courage was in simply following the rules, which enraged some Trump supporters. In one video, one man was heard to say, “If Pence caved, we’re going to drag the [expletive] through the streets.” (Thus far, Pence has not testified, and Trump has never contacted him to apologize.)

Had Pence not rebuffed the pressure, the country would have been thrown into chaos. Such an act would have meant that after a free and fair election, the President could simply try to overturn it and hold onto power.

5. President Trump instigated over-the-top pressure and intimidation of election officials and even personally released some people’s private details (aka “doxxing”). In hearing #4, we witnessed evidence that Donald Trump pressured GOP state officials to reverse election results. Rusty Bowers, Arizona House Speaker (and a Republican who voted for Trump), was one of the witnesses. Bowers said that there were a lot of theories but no evidence, but John Eastman pressured him to decertify the election results, and Trump asked him to replace the certified electors with Trump’s newly recruited replacements. Several members of Congress and other officials also pressured Bowers.

Citing his Latter-day Saint faith and constitutional oath, Bowers refused to bow to pressure. Bowers was doxxed—his personal information was revealed, resulting in threatening crowds gathering in his front yard even as a daughter was seriously ill.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger also testified and explained how his family was doxxed and harassed because of a smear campaign instigated by Donald Trump, including being called a pedophile by the President.

Two compelling witnesses were Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, an election worker in Georgia, and her mother, Ruby Freeman. Trump doxxed these women, too, accusing them of being serial election defrauders. The resulting outrage among his supporters, fueled by these insinuations and accusations, caused them to abandon their work, withdraw from social contact, and fear leaving their homes.

Also prominent in the hearing was the courage and loyalty to oath manifested by many Republicans who refused to participate in the attempt to overturn election results.  Many of those have suffered slander by Trump and then doxxing that put them and their families in harm’s way.

While it’s true that both political parties engage in such tactics, we should all be able to acknowledge these are dirty political tricks that have no place in civil discourse, especially at the highest levels of leadership in our nation.

6. Former President Trump took other unprecedented steps to try and retain power. In hearing #5, more focus went to Donald Trump’s attempt to urge the Justice Department  into acting to help him retain the presidency. When those attempts failed, he tried to replace key officials in the Justice Department with others he chose, even just a few days before the inauguration. This possibility was so unacceptable that most of the assistant attorneys’ general threatened to quit en masse.

In hearing #6, Cassidy Hutchinson also testified of the quest for pardons for various aides and government officials and that Trump wanted to extend pardons to some of the rioters too. The most recent hearing went deeper into examining multiple requests of various Republicans seeking blanket pardons. Why the requests for pardons if they believed their recommendations and actions to be within the law?

Also discussed was the former President’s requests that the Justice Department examine voting machines and invalidate state election results, which actions are clearly outside the scope of their office. The President was furious when they would not or would not comply.

7. Stop the Steal has been profitable for the Trump campaign. In hearing #2, we learned that an estimated $250 million was collected from Trump supporters to “Stop the Steal” following Election Day, $150 million of which was received in the first week. And money continues to pour in, especially to the Save America PAC, which is the major Trump-supporting political action committee. Money also went to other outside groups supporting Trump; salaries for ex-Trump officials; a charitable foundation with connections to former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows; and even to the Trump hotel chain.

8. Some of the most extreme protestors seemed to be emboldened by President Trump’s signals. In hearing #2, testimony was heard from filmmaker Nick Quested who followed the activities of the Proud Boys prior to the riot—suggesting that plans had been laid well before the event. Later interviews revealed that some members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers expected to become Trump’s private, special army if he retained the presidency.

Later in hearing #7, we learned more about Donald Trump’s influence on these groups, examining his shares on social media and how groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys responded to them. The case was made that the former President led them to believe they were the seeds of his personal army and encouraged them to come to the capitol to help restore him to the presidency.  The hearing detailed some of the social media exchanges between members of the groups as they prepared for the day. 

Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesman for the Oath Keepers, testified of the effect of these messages. He also said that Trump was dangerous and would continue to be in the future if left unchecked. He said, “If a president is willing to try to instill and encourage, to whip up a civil war amongst his followers using lies and deceit and snake oil, and regardless of the human impact, what else is he going to do if he gets elected again? All bets are off at that point.” He also pointed out how lucky we are that more people, including elected officials, weren’t injured or killed on January 6, 2020.

Some final thoughts. Despite all the foregoing, there have been no apologies or evidence of remorse from the former president for the killed or wounded, none for Mike Pence, nor for government officials who were terrified that day.

His primary focus has been himself. That continues to be the case.

Because of my own family background (being raised by a narcissistic parent), I’ve had to become very familiar with that condition and the wreckage it can cause. And it’s hard for me not to see the traits of malignant narcissism here—especially the lack of empathy and remorse, a tendency towards extreme anger and blaming others, and a willingness to lie repeatedly. For a narcissist, the greatest loyalty in every situation would be toward himself.

Whether or not this diagnostic category formally applies, my point is this: You simply don’t want someone with these characteristics to lead the most powerful country in the world. In Plato’s dialogue with Critias, he asks: “How will a man choose the ruler that shall rule over him? Will he not choose a man who has first established order in himself, knowing that any decision that has its spring from anger or pride or vanity can be multiplied a thousandfold in its effects upon the citizens?”

I recognize many thoughtful and good-hearted people see former President Trump and even some of the events on January 6 differently. And I acknowledge that many of his supporters at the capitol felt deceived by what happened—and could be considered victims. This session of the hearing also included testimony from “Stephen Ayres, an Ohio man who traveled to D.C. for the Stop the Steal rally. He hadn’t intended to storm the capitol but ended up being part of the crowd that did. In his testimony, he discussed how he was very active on social media and how it influenced him to make the trip to D.C. As Price St. Clair noted in his coverage of the hearing for The Dispatch, “He told the House committee he no longer believes the election was stolen and is mad that Trump is still lying about it.”

I also acknowledge there are other questions about January 6—from alleged police brutality to the possible role of extraneous agitators—that merit additional examination. I hope some of this will be examined in upcoming hearings. In our attempt to understand a broader picture of what took place, I would especially hope that conservatives don’t follow pundit orders to write off the work of these proceedings—and instead, consider seriously what is being examined and confirmed.

The post The January 6 Hearings Are Not Just a Political Stunt appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

The January 6th Committee Hearings have brought up many memories and raised even more questions. I was there that day. And the event being portrayed was very different than the one I attended.

The year 2020 critically altered my awareness of the world around me. For much of my adult life, I preferred to avoid the news; I experienced it as all bad, disturbing, and disruptive to my belief in the goodness of humanity.

However, the events of 2020 up to and including the presidential election demanded my attention and shook me. Like other citizens, I tried to find non-partisan news in the destructively divisive climate, and consumed media from a wide variety of sources. I was proud when I purchased my ticket to be in Washington, D.C. on January 6th, for what was represented to me as a patriotic rally. I felt drawn to attend, engaged, responsible, and concerned for our country.

From the moment I landed, I met many others who expressed similar sentiments. Picture the crowd with me: dressed in casual everyday clothing, Gen-Y mingling with Boomers. Everyone I spoke with was energetic, God-fearing, and patriotic, with many races and cultures present. Being in this crowd felt like attending a hometown parade, where everyone is polite, lets you cut through to the front of the group, helps people up on shoulders and walls to see better, holds your place in line, and offers to take pictures for you—and sometimes with you. As I moved with the crowd down the streets and onto the trains, it was common to hear DC locals thank us for being there. One of them pulled her car over and stopped us at a crosswalk—expressing thanks to us for showing up. A woman on the train told us she worked for the current administration, and as grateful as she was, she was open about her disappointment that the presence of so many would not make a difference. 

Speaking for myself, everyone I met was the kind of person who makes eye contact, shakes your hand, and makes an art of casual, friendly conversation. However, I did see people that didn’t look or feel that way. These individuals moved differently, they walked with purpose and focus—like when you have instructions to get somewhere quickly. They wore backpacks, boots, and masks. They stomped through the friendly crowds, never making eye contact or stopping to talk with anyone. At one point, we were walking along the street and witnessed two young 20-something-year-old men dressed in all black, coordinated backpacks and other gear that seemed out of place and tactical. They were pulling things from their backpacks and changing clothes topped off with red MAGA baseball caps. Although I didn’t witness any wrongdoing by them, they didn’t fit in with the bulk of others at the rally.

When we visited the BLM Boulevard our first night there, we witnessed a number of angry, anti-Trump protestors. Though unafraid to be with people who thought differently from me, it seemed wise to not overly engage. Although we were near the White House, we witnessed a police-escort emptying out two white, unmarked school-type buses filled with a crowd of the boot-wearing, tactical-looking men we had seen earlier. At this point, we didn’t understand why there’d be a need for this.

On the day of the rally, we arrived early, probably 4:30 a.m. Even as we arrived, in those early morning hours, there was a crowd like I have never seen at any concert or sporting event!  The description of a “sea of people” doesn’t come close—the vastness was more like an ocean! Once we were inside the gates of the event, we found ourselves about 15 rows back from the stage and felt lucky to have landed seats right behind the reserved, seated “special guest” section. When it became light enough to really see the crowd behind us it blew my mind!  The crowd was at least as wide as the block and went back well past the Washington Monument that was across the lawn and street from the rally. People were shoulder to shoulder the entire way back. This crowd had gathered out of a collective love for our nation and our freedoms. My eyes will never unsee it!  My heart will never unfeel it! Since then, I have heard reports about the crowd being closer to 10,000-20,000. Yet we witnessed hundreds of thousands.

It was cold and we spent most of the day standing, walking, meeting, and talking to others. As we did, it was common to hear of struggles with phones—batteries draining, no signals to send photos or videos, and only occasionally getting a text or call coming through. Because of that people were being especially helpful to one another, the old-fashioned way before we all had phones, sharing information and updates. Because we were all still taking photos and videos (just couldn’t share them), many exchanged phone numbers so that later we could be in touch. Those many millions of friendly and celebratory photos and videos of the day’s happenings are certainly not what we see represented in media representations of January 6, even though in my experience, this kind of interaction was the majority of what took place. 

Another common topic of discussion was how many were not necessarily there “for Trump.” Clearly, many were. But many others we talked to were there for reasons like ours; we felt concerned about the integrity of the election, had a desire to be part of something important, and were showing up to show we cared about our country.  Never once did I hear talk of rebellion. I didn’t see guns. I didn’t hear anger. I didn’t hear hate. I saw people sitting on walls, swinging their feet, and singing patriotic and gospel songs. 

I listened to many speeches that day from politicians and Trump’s family. Their words were truly inspiring, showing respect for the core principles of our great nation. They shared their desire to help America be its best. President Trump spoke for over an hour. Not once did I feel like he was encouraging any kind of misconduct. In fact, I remember him reminding us that if we were going to the Capitol, to do it “peacefully.” The speeches we heard from the rally stage are recorded and can be viewed by anyone seeking to know what was said in its entirety. It’s all there to appreciate in its full context rather than edited “sound bites;” and what I’m suggesting is the full picture tells a different story.

When the speeches were done, we started to make our way back to our hotel. We were anxious to warm up, rest, charge our phones and get some decent cell reception. As we began to hear more rumors of updates, we were all the more anxious to get back to the hotel at that point so we could hear the news updates for ourselves. We watched in horror as other photos and videos exploded across our screens.

We felt an urgency to go to the capital area and see for ourselves how things had changed so much. Worried calls and messages from family back home were confusing. We didn’t feel scared or in danger. Nobody was running in the opposite direction telling us to get to safety. Nothing and no one gave us any impression that we should clear out or not be there. To the contrary—the crowd was still singing.

It’s true that as I eventually left the Capitol, I heard loud bangs, looked back, and saw puffs of clouds near where I had just been standing. We later learned it was tear gas set off by Capitol police to clear people away. It was nearly 5 pm and the Washington, D.C. mayor had ordered a 6:00 curfew. The crowd then quickly thinned out and dispersed.

Even at the airport, as we were leaving, townspeople who attended the rally seemed to find each other. We would gather in a circle and share the things we had experienced. We shared stories and headed home.

It’s true I’m among those with questions about the integrity of an election process that experienced consequential changes against the backdrop of a global pandemic. I’m also concerned (like so many) with a growing amount of chaos in our institutions.  But the last thing I would want is to participate in something that threatens American democracy. That’s not why I was there. And it’s not why the people I spoke to were there.

We were standing with other Americans proud to be patriots. Like so many things, the “Save America” rally was multi-faceted and complicated. And there’s a good chance, you’re not hearing the story of how it looked to most of us who were there.

The post What Else Happened January 6th appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

For the past few weeks, millions of Americans have tuned in as the House Select Committee to investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol has conducted public hearings. In these hearings, the committee has put forward evidence backing up a compelling narrative chronicling the efforts by former President Donald Trump to stay in power after he lost the 2020 election.  

Yet because these hearings have become deeply politicized, and seen as more of a television spectacle rather than a bona fide hearing, I fear that many people are not listening. 

Two things have stood out to me about these hearings:

First of all, the plans and anticipations began long before January 6th. Indeed, even before the election, President Trump worked to convince his supporters that the only way he could lose would be if fraud was committed. As highlighted prior to the election in the pages of this magazine, President Trump began raising questions about the election in tweets as early as June, stating, “This will be the Election disaster of our time. Mail-In Ballots will lead to a RIGGED ELECTION!” and then, “RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!” And then, “Because of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, 2020 will be the most RIGGED Election in our nation’s history—unless this stupidity is ended.” 

In the months following those tweets, President Trump returned to this theme multiple times, including remarks in mid-August 2020 where he said, “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if this election is rigged,” and then later that month, “the only way they’re going to win is by a rigged election”—a contention he repeated in September: “The Democrats are trying to rig this election because that’s the only way they’re going to win.” He also said, “they’re trying to steal the election, and everybody knows that,” and called it all a “scam.”  

As one commentator said about the President at the time, “He’s effectively saying the election is illegitimate unless he wins”—with another summarizing the message as being, “If any result is not as I declared it to be, that is fraudulent.”

It’s remarkable that this alone was not alarming to more, even most, Americans at the time.  Of course, President Trump is not the first, or only politician to cry “foul” over an election loss. Our nation has witnessed a number of contested elections—on the national and local scale, including the 2000 Election which ultimately required the Supreme Court’s intervention. What strikes me as different is two fold. First of all, this election was not particularly close. Second, while past politicians have sought recounts or filed lawsuits, Trump was willing to go beyond the courts and engage in a prolonged campaign of deception and intimidation without regard for the facts.

The second and perhaps the most alarming thing is that this plot could have been successful in at the very least fomenting chaos and a deep constitutional crisis, but for a few brave leaders who stood up and resisted.  The hearing on June 16th highlighted the pressure campaign that Vice President Pence experienced that week, up to and including threats to his safety. Despite that pressure from the President himself as well as many of the President’s surrogates and advisors such as John Eastman, and Steve Bannon, President Pence stood firm in defense of the Constitution against what many have concluded was President Trump’s unlawful coup attempt. He stood undaunted even when President Trump turned against him and called him out before his followers. He stood undaunted even when the President tried to provide him with a pretext to act. He stood undaunted in the face of a mob and refused to leave the capitol until the election results were certified.

On June 21, 2022, Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spoke about the months-long pressure campaign from the President, Rudy Guliani, and others to call the election into question and hold baseless investigations and hearings. When Bowers refused to comply with the President’s requests, he became the subject of incredibly aggressive measures including people parking outside of his house displaying a video accusing him of being a pedophile and having a militia member with a gun confront one of his neighbors. 

As I listened to the testimony over the past few weeks, I was reminded of the many accounts in the Book of Mormon of those who attempted to usurp power and the brave men and women willing to stand up against them. At the end of the Book of Alma, we learn of a plot by “king men” to overthrow the government and replace it with a monarchical rule. These Kingmen “used great flattery” and “led away the hearts of many people.” Pahoran, the judge at the time, managed to escape their coup attempt and to rally the people to take back their government.

Just a generation later, a similar pattern recurs. When Pahoran dies, three of his sons “contend for the judgment seat.” The people support Pahoran (II). His brother Pacumeni accepts the will of the electorate. But his other brother Paanchi does not. Just as he “was about to flatter away those people to rise up in rebellion against their brethren,” he is taken and sentenced to death. That’s when his followers send forth a man to murder Pahoran and try to take control—forming a secret combination bent on power. They do not succeed right away. But eventually, this secret combination “did prove the overthrow, yea, almost the entire destruction of the people of Nephi.”

When I first read the Book of Mormon, it was hard for me to understand how so many people could be led astray by this kind of flattery and support usurpers to the throne. But now that I have seen something similar happen right before my eyes, it is not so difficult to imagine. I can now understand why the appeals of the Kingmen or the Gadianton band could have been so seductive to so many people.

Perhaps the Kingmen claimed that the selection of judges was rigged. Perhaps they claimed that power had been stolen from them. Perhaps they claimed that if they were not put into power that their nation would fall apart into chaos. Perhaps they argued that only they could keep the nation great. Perhaps they argued that the ends justified the means of overthrowing the government. This kind of grievance and fear-based argument can be extremely powerful, especially in a time of great instability and change.

I’m not suggesting all Trump supporters fell into the trap that makes them akin to those who followed the King Men or the Gadianton Robbers; indeed, Vice President Pence was a very loyal supporter of President Trump. And people can, in good faith, debate over whether we need more electoral security or whether policies enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic made the 2020 election less secure. My focus is on those who resisted the peaceful transition of power and bought into President Trump’s lies, like the ancient American people who went off after Paanchi’s deceptions.

Only a fraction of Americans appreciates how consequential the message of this mighty, ancient book is for our current circumstances. The Book of Mormon shows us that liberty is precious and that it only takes a few wicked men to destroy it. It also teaches that a few righteous men like Captain Moroni and Pahoran can prevent society from spiraling into wickedness.

Rusty Bowers similarly read these powerful words of conscience and conviction from his journal written at the time: “I will not play with laws I swore allegiance to[.]” “How else will I ever approach [God] in the wilderness of life, knowing that I ask of this guidance only to show myself a coward in defending the course He led me to take?

Unfortunately, these stories in the Book of Mormon also show that attempts at the destruction of government are rarely one-time incidents. Instead, they tend to feed into each other and lead to the escalating destruction of norms rather than a return to previous and long-held norms of social and democratic stability. I fear that the destruction of the specific norms around the peaceful transition of power “will be the cause of sore affliction among us.” 

It is worth acknowledging here that neither side of the aisle has pure hands with regard to responding graciously to defeat. Both sides have undermined democratic norms. But President Trump’s organized and carefully orchestrated plan to reject the will of the people and remain in power goes far beyond the pale and represents a frightening lurch away from democracy. 

What can break this downward cycle? Repentance and some legitimate accountability. Hopefully, as we learn about exactly what happened on January 6 and how close we came to the brink, we can as a nation recommit to righteous principle and reject the conspiracy theories and lies that brought us to that point. We need to reject the purely partisan framing of these events and step outside party lines to seek bipartisan solutions. The Book of Mormon represents yet another warning that if we are not able to do so, we may suffer severe and lasting consequences. 

At the end of January 6, 2021, after Vice President Pence carried out his duty as Vice President and certified the election results, his Counsel Marc Short sent him a text message sharing a verse of scripture, where Paul declares, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). This is a powerful and inspiring message. Maintaining a free nation is a fight, but it is a good fight and a righteous cause. I pray that we will have the courage to keep the faith and fight this good fight.

The post Kingmen on January 6th appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

One of the key reasons many conservative voters sided with President Trump in 2016 and 2020 was that he “is a fighter.” They complained that the Grand Old Party’s leadership wanted to be liked by the DC social circuit more than they wanted to push a conservative agenda. They viewed the Republican leadership as publicly silent and seemingly servile even during what they felt was a brutally condescending administration of former President Barack Obama. This frustration in priorities was exacerbated by political differences. Those frustrated with Republican leadership tended to be populist conservatives living through Rust Belt economic devastation they blamed on NAFTA.

While generally hawkish, the legalistic, globalist leaders like the Three John’s—John McCain, John Boehner, and John Roberts—in the populists’ eye were obsequious in their dealings with a deeply biased press, to the point of being openly called out by GOP insiders for that type of behavior. One example was John McCain being named a “poodle for the press” by Andrew Klavan, the influential, moderate-conservative, populist commentator for the DailyWire.

These populists viewed GOP leaders as wanting to be invited to beltway cocktail parties or praised as mavericks by the New York Times editorial board more than they wanted to push for conservative policy reforms. It came as no surprise, then, that a legitimate outsider (for both good and ill) like President Donald Trump, put there by a disenfranchised conservative populist wing, would come into conflict with these establishment Republicans.

These were GOP leaders who refused to stand up to editorial media that attacked clean-cut, civil, and highly qualified Republicans like McCain himself—and especially Mitt Romney—as racists, sexists, and homophobes. One such attack on Romney came from now President Joe Biden when he said, “He wants to put you all back in chains,” while speaking of Romney to an African-American crowd. Yet GOP leadership largely ignored these attacks and the silence by the editorial news media. Faced with a culture they viewed as stacked against them, rank and file members, especially those with populist concerns, were slowly growing agitated, frustrated, and angry at their elected officials’ weakness and deference.

Throughout Donald Trump’s presidency, GOP leadership and politicians as a whole became more willing to engage with the public directly, willing to call out the media for its biased forms of reporting, and willing to adopt a ‘trust but verify’ approach to even general news media. During this same time, many media outlets sadly proved they were in desperate need of reform themselves with repeated retractions, clarifications, and lost court battles over defamation on stories that would have taken little effort to source properly.

The newly galvanized politicians include many of the previously disappointing establishment Republicans such as Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell. Both began to be viewed positively by the conservative base for their newfound roaring voices and willingness to stand up for conservative principles by playing political hardball in their pursuit in the new Trumpian era. By contrast, those who lacked a desire to fight, such as John Boehner, were ousted from leadership. From the perspective of disaffected conservatives, this period revealed which politicians had backbones and which were merely political ‘sunshine patriots.’ They saw the conservative view restored to its lion-like voice in politics, led by its populist rustbelt members.

The effect of that roaring voice arguably allowed the GOP, and Donald Trump himself, to garner the most significant amount of minority votes both by proportion and in raw numbers that a Republican has received since the reconstruction era. It effectively cracked the stranglehold the Democrats have had over minority votes for nearly a hundred years. The cascading effects for the GOP of unleashing the Republican political machine and showing it how to engage with the media and its opposition party again are hard to dispute. And many on the right see them as positive.

However, one of those frequently accused of being a “RINO” globalist hawk stands apart from the others. He left a significant and lasting positive cultural effect on the GOP and American politics in general. That man was a war hero who endured the harshest torture a person could survive as a prisoner of war, a man who actively stood up for civility in public discourse, and a man who left a legacy of leadership and heroism that even to this day is widely respected across the political spectrum.

That man is John McCain. Deeply beloved by virtually all corners of the Big Tent GOP and most Americans in general, John McCain was seen as a respected war hero by nearly everyone. His legacy of leadership and spirit of patriotism can be encapsulated in this quote from his time running for president— “My country saved me, she saved me. And I can not forget it. And I will fight for her as long as I draw breath, so help me God!” 

John McCain was a man whose conservative bonafides were well known yet whose ability to work across the aisle was uncontested. His bravery in the face of adversity was undisputed. He shut down a potential voter who pushed the idea that Barack Obama was a foreign criminal, standing up for his opponent even as much as he disagreed with him. All the while, he was disingenuously denounced by the press as a doddering old fool and a warmonger.

Yet, he was a man still—capable of folly and failure—a man whose political career among the GOP arguably stands tarnished by two acts. First was his final vote to protect the Affordable Care Act, aka “ObamaCare.” In addition to undeniably transforming the medical industry in this country, many conservatives saw this as an act of vengeance, denying Trump and the GOP the victory they sought on that hotly contested policy issue and denying Trump a legislative win that was otherwise hard-won. Many believe that success could have catapulted the Republicans to victory in this recent election—especially if the outcome of that policy change decreased red-tape, increased efficiency, and removed middle-men between the taxpayer and their doctors as conservatives anticipated.

Secondly, John McCain, while on his deathbed, handed the Steele Dossier over to Democratic operatives. The dossier became the impetus for the original impeachment hearings and investigations that led to the uncovering of the infamous Ukrainian phone call.

These two acts alone proved over time to have had a significant, undermining effect on the Trump Administration even if no immediate consequences, either legal or political such as removal from office, came from it. Had John McCain realized the eventual consequences of these two decisions, it’s not hard to imagine he would have regretted them.
So, why did he do this? And why has Arizona, a traditionally deeply conservative state settled originally by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints—a traditionally profoundly socially and politically conservative demographic—switched blue? And not just for president, but for both Senate seats. Why is it that nearly every group directly linked to John McCain, the imperfect war hero, has abandoned both the GOP or the Trump Administration in its hour of need?

Five simple words. Then-candidate Donald Trump, “He’s not a war hero. He’s, he’s. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.” Trump’s statement was a legitimately disgusting dig at John McCain’s social status as a war hero and standing as a statesman and leader. It also undermined all members of the U.S. military who were captured and treated like McCain was—a group to which many soldiers returning from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars belong. 

Trump doubled-down on the statement and continued deeply personal antagonism with McCain and his family—repeatedly calling him a failure over his failed presidential run in 2012. This resulted in Arizona turning blue when moderate Republicans from a deeply civil demographic, politically and quietly revolted. While Trump’s base came out in droves for him, without the moderate Republicans in that state, it wasn’t enough to overcome the Democratic tidal wave.

Despite the events of January 6th and the result of the election, there remain many Republicans who believe Donald Trump had a positive effect on the GOP. They appreciate how he galvanized leadership, broadened the base, and treated the news media as antagonistically as they felt treated by them. These factors arguably allowed Lindsey Graham to defeat an opponent that had nearly quadrupled his budgeted ad spend, and why instead of losing six seats in the House, as many projected Republicans to do, they instead made significant gains.

However, Donald Trump’s combativeness with virtually everyone who even remotely disliked him on a personal level has cost Trump and the GOP Arizona, Georgia, and the Senate. And his effect on the moderate Republican votes in places like Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina likely cost him the election.

There are three lessons the GOP should take from the Trump era and the aftermath of this election. First, there is a large faction that feels unrepresented by the popular and news media. Politicians who focus on appeasing them risk alienating a sizeable vocal segment of voters.

Second, reconciliation and compromise require mutual respect. Once an election is won, it is essential to allow old grudges and mutual disdain to dissipate when working out the peoples’ business in the halls of power. At the very least, a respectful working relationship needs to be forged. Otherwise, when prominent personalities clash, regions of the country and sections of both parties will simply take their ball and go home like many moderate Republicans seem to have done this election. 

Thirdly, there needs to be a conversation between the globalistic moderate-Republicans and their populist rustbelt cousins about rebuilding mutual respect. No longer can the wealthy establishment members of the GOP ignore the populist cry of economic devastation. And no longer can the rust belters allow their rage at their mistreatment by their moderate allies to push them towards electing interpersonal wrecking balls like President Donald Trump.

Otherwise, the party of Lincoln will soon be fractured or even die, as many are predicting.  As all political parties do, the GOP needs to learn how to compromise without compromising their values. They need to hear the other side’s point, empathize with them, and seek relief for them even if they disagree with their policy prescriptions. Only by seeing diverse fellow Republicans as worthy of at least being heard can a conservative party survive.

Mark this as a set of lessons that every political movement in a functional democracy needs to learn and adopt. The lessons apply both within parties—navigating political and social diversity—and between parties, as legislators and officials seek functional compromise and working business relationships. Let us all be able to come together and say “with malice toward none with charity for all” and be gracious winners, just as much as we are good losers.

The post The Ghost of John McCain: Globalist Apathy vs. Populist Rage appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

To all those who did not support us, let me say this: Hear me out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart. And if you still disagree, so be it. That’s democracy. That’s America. The right to dissent peaceably, within the guardrails of our republic, is perhaps our nation’s greatest strength.

Then he said, “Yet hear me clearly: Disagreement must not lead to disunion.”

Why was that such a critical moment?  Because it’s such a departure from what so many others are concluding right now:  that our disagreements (about race, or electoral security, or sexuality, or climate, or immigration) are so serious, so concerning, that, in fact, they do say something about our ability to remain one nation.  

It’s fair to say this is the common theme uniting all of the most divisive voices—on both sides of the political spectrum:  an insistence that if you disagree about X or Y, it says a great deal more than usual disagreements.  

Whereas it may be okay to disagree civilly about A or B, when it comes to X or Y, you are “threatening the health of the planet” or “threatening democracy” or “threatening minority populations” or “threatening public health overall.”

As we’ve pointed out in previous editorials, it’s on those questions that feel like “life and death” for different groups where these conclusions are especially easy to arrive at and embrace.  

How dare you threaten our very existence as a nation, as a minority group, as a planet, as a healthy public!?  

Our response to these questions is therefore far more visceral—invoking, as it does, a fight or flight response as do all questions of survival.  No wonder, then, those speaking from such a place portray others who disagree on these matters as not reasonable, not thoughtful, not good-hearted—but, indeed, dangerous threats.  And reckless—maybe even traitors—for believing what they believe?

How easy it would have been for President Biden to channel a similar message.  

But he didn’t.  He underscored something very different—as he has his whole campaign.  When supporters—and critics—pushed Joe Biden to get in the mud, he refused.  

Over and over, and over again.  With remarkable consistency and precision.  

Which is why now President Biden can speak with authenticity about something precious that Americans are forgetting.  Something core to its own foundation as a country—the idea that citizens who disagree vociferously can come together and not only self-govern, but maintain a country together.  

That is at the heart of who we are as a people—all the way back—and we forget it at our peril.  

Liz Joyner argues this was the heart of the public square in America—“the spirit of all this talking” where “all of a sudden good ideas were coming from a bazillion different brains, not just the king’s one brain.”

As she recounts, “As you might imagine, the hotsy-totsy wrinkled old King, who liked ideas to come from his brain because he usually agreed with himself, didn’t like the [Public] Square a bit and he got pretty snippy and tried to make them shut up.

“It didn’t work.” After fighting a war to ensure they were free to keep disagreeing, Liz continues:   

They fussed and fought among themselves about this and that, but in the end, they decided to agree on what they could agree on and agree to disagree about the rest. And they decided to keep right on talking. They eventually agreed on a lot of important things so they wrote them down on paper. They even put in a lot of words to make it safe to keep disagreeing. You might have read it, it begins “We the People.”

Thank God there were people courageous enough to question this King—and lay the foundation of a country where these freedoms were everyone’s freedoms.  As our beloved Abraham Lincoln reminded the nation on the occasion of his own 1861 inaugural address: 

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Our new President Biden has modeled and reminded us some of the core underpinnings of this nation—in a moment where we’re liable to forget them.  

Thank you, President Biden.  Even if and when we (already) disagree with you on a multitude of issues, thank heavens we have such a foundation to rest ourselves on as a people.  

May that foundation endure all the challenges and messy conversation still facing us in the year ahead.  

The post Disagreement is Not Disunion appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Lovely rhetoric. Rhetoric isn’t nothing. If America is an idea, not a tribe of “blood and soil” —if we are, as St. Augustine defined a nation, a community “united by the common objects of our love”—then one essential qualification of an American president must be the ability to articulate what those objects are. 

And yet: “Watch his hips, not his feet,” as they say in football. “A man can smile, and smile, and be a villain.”  Acts contrary to soaring rhetoric mock both the words and their intended targets.

I devoutly want Americans, even when we disagree profoundly, to remember “the mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone,” and continue as fellow countrymen. We’ve been through a lot together and accomplished so much. Like Washington, I believe our independence, founding and survival were literally providential—more than we had any right to expect. 

Over the years I was supposed to have spent growing up, I’ve wasted way too much time playing “world-builder” computer games, from Sid Meier’s original, addicting “Civilization” to “Europa Universalis.”

One of the features of those games, where you rule and develop a civilization, is typically some measure of social cohesion. Ignore enough complaints from your sim-citizens for too long, and bad things happen. Your tax collections fall, or your policing costs rise. Even if the citizens don’t rebel outright, you lose the willing cooperation of people who feel that their government is truly theirs, leaving you with only what compliance you can extract by force.

In a computer game, it doesn’t matter whether you think your sim-citizens’ grievances are morally right or wrong. Let the “cohesion” bar get too red, and you’ve got trouble. You can either assign more resources to suppress unrest, or you can throw the restive sims a bone and remove some of their grievances. At the very least, you avoid antagonizing them even more.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election, commentators expressed outrage that 70 million Americans could have voted for Donald Trump, and asked “what can be done” about them. There was talk of “enemies lists,” and blackballing Trump’s supporters from future employment and polite society. (Apparently the only thing wrong with “McCarthyism” was that it was aimed at the wrong side.)

Enter, stage right, a truckload of gasoline: the January 6 Capitol Hill riot. The President of the United States addressed an agitated mass demonstration, repeated his allegations of election fraud, and invited his supporters to march on the Capitol (“peacefully and patriotically”)—all to encourage a quixotic gambit by a minority of the Republican delegations to delay the electoral certification pending an “audit.”  

Unlike past tense demonstrations at the Capitol, the Capitol Police were apparently badly unprepared. Some demonstrators found a lightly-guarded entrance open and entered the building. There were disturbing images of people attempting to break glass to get into the House Chamber itself. Most of the rioters milled around generally making fools of themselves—including the icon of the riot, a half-naked man in a buffalo “shaman” headdress—but by all indications, some seriously intended to physically stop the “corrupt” vote of Congress certifying the election “by any means necessary.”  A woman was shot dead by police as she tried to break into the House chamber, and a policeman was fatally struck with a fire extinguisher. 

Three others died: a woman trampled to death while carrying (in a darkly ironic touch) a Gadsden “Don’t Tread On Me” flag and two men who died of a heart attack and a stroke, respectively, outside the building. 

Afterward, President Trump tweeted (and was promptly and permanently banned by Twitter for) the following: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.”

The President was widely accused of “inciting” the violence in the Capitol—indeed, of “sedition” and “inciting insurrection” or attempting a “coup.” Even though his speech said nothing about storming the Capitol, violence, or any other unlawful act, it was argued that his words were a coded message to his supporters. And indeed, his “These are the things … that happen” tweet after the fact, if not an outright endorsement of those “things,” was, as the saying goes, “praising with faint damns.” 

In a rapid cascade, the President was banned from every social media from Twitter to Shopify to TikTok. A frantic hunt ensued and is still continuing, for anything with any connection to “treason,” “sedition,” “insurrection,” or other dangerous talk. Whether this escalates to a repeat of the early 1950s “Red Scare” remains to be seen, but early impressions are that it may even surpass that.

Ever since the Vietnam War, the Democratic Party struggled to overcome the trope—fair or not—that they were the “disloyal” faction. January 6 presented them with a golden opportunity to reverse that theme once and for all and hang a scarlet T for Traitor around the opposition’s necks. 

Nevertheless:  You can lower the temperature and call for unity—or you can talk vengeance. Pick one.

If the former, the uphill climb is already steep enough. Millions of people watched the people now talking about “unity” spend the last four years doing the exact opposite of what they ask now. Having persuaded themselves that Donald Trump presented an unprecedented, extraordinary threat to democracy itself, they acted accordingly. While throwing themselves into massive resistance of his presidency, their hatred of the man inevitably bled over onto his deplorable “scum of the earth” supporters—the people they now insist must “lower the temperature” and join hands in friendship, unity, and concord. 

Worse, these same supporters also saw many of those people talking of unity now normalize and rationalize political violence (no less explicitly than Donald Trump has) to an unprecedented degree over the past summer in service of left-wing ends. “People will do what they will do,” as the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said of the summer fashion of mobs pulling down “problematic” public statues. A deadly, destructive armed occupation of multiple city blocks was a “summer of love”: “Don’t be so afraid of democracy,” the local leftist mayor smugly dismissed concerns. (She changed her tune when her own house was surrounded, and the occupiers’ security forces shot two black children, one fatally.)

So invested were left-liberals in the dogma of political violence to promote “social justice,” that the brilliant young Democratic political analyst David Shor was canceled—hounded by a Twitter mob, and fired by the consulting firm where he worked—for Tweeting an academic study showing that the violent riots of the late 1960s were politically damaging to Democrats.
Some might dismiss the above as “whataboutism,” a word more often deployed than clearly defined.  Indeed, left-wing riots do not excuse right-wing riots.  But a system is not sustainable when one faction reserves the right to resort to the knife and torch while insisting the other stick with the ballot box and what’s left of the soapbox after “cancel culture” took a hatchet to it. 

I agree: “We must not be enemies.”  The costs of that would be horrific. But understand:  This is a big ask. Asking one’s opponents to be better than they were—while still reserving the right to call them trash—is not likely to work.

Maybe progressives are ultimately right about their enemies. Either way, though, if they really believe their own rhetoric—if they truly seek unity, not submission—words alone aren’t going to do it. Especially if other words, and other acts, send other signals.

And even if they’re correct—that left-wing causes are inherently nobler than conservative causes—the fundamental bargain of democracy is that each side must forswear political violence. It’s no good making exceptions for “just causes”—the whole premise of democracy is the recognition that different people disagree about what causes are just.

I believe that liberal democracy is desirable because it is moral—because, among all of the governing arrangements available to human beings in their present condition, government by consent which honors the natural rights of man is the one most consistent with the God-given sovereignty of the human person. But set morality aside for a moment, and focus just on the pragmatic:

In a democracy, we each consent to be governed by the same rules, even though we know sometimes we’ll lose—because the costs of occasionally losing are lower than the high transaction costs of having to hash things out with battle axes every time we disagree.

“Game theory”—the study of strategic interaction between rational decision-makers— makes it clear that if one player resorts to political violence, so will his opponent. No asymmetrical ruleset ever endures long. If the object is to preserve a liberal democracy, then it doesn’t matter who is right or wrong about whose cause is more just. Since each side will typically think the answer to that question is “my cause, obviously,” the only possible way to restrain both from kicking over the game table is for the commitment against “politics as war” to be universal. 

And that brings us to the Deplorables’ talk about stolen elections, and how to respond to it. 

If someone is honest about wanting to “see each other again … listen to each other again,” he needs to step back, take a deep breath, and put himself in the other side’s shoes.

With open accusations of decisive voter fraud, a refusal to concede, and explicit lobbying of legislators to resort to extraordinary (if legal) measures to prevent his reelection from being “stolen,” President Trump set a new precedent for a defeated candidate’s willingness to play with fire. There have been Presidents who believed they were cheated—notably, Richard Nixon in 1960. Nixon, however, balancing the difficulty of proving his suspicions with the potential harm another contested election might do to confidence in the legitimacy of American democracy at the height of the Cold War, chose to concede and let his surrogates sift through the fraud in Chicago and Texas.

Nevertheless, challenges to the legitimacy of elections have increased dramatically over the past three decades. Donald Trump is swinging on the latest sweep of the pendulum.

Those now being accused of “conspiracy theories” for doubting the honesty of the election watched their now-critics reject the “stolen” hung-chad election of 2000, pronouncing George W. Bush “selected, not elected.”

In 2004, they saw conspiracy theories about Diebold voting machines being hacked by nefarious Republican operatives turned into Emmy-nominated documentaries, and Democrats in Congress object to the electoral count. They heard the defeated candidate, John Kerry, declare that “the widespread irregularities make it impossible to know for certain that the outcome reflected the will of the voters.”  

They saw 2/3 of Democrats (according to a poll by The Economist magazine) say they believed Russia didn’t just spread disinformation during the 2016 election, but actually tampered with the vote count—something for which there was never any credible evidence. 

They saw the Speaker of the House herself declare that the 2016 election had been “hijacked.”  They heard former President Jimmy Carter call Donald Trump’s presidency “illegitimate.”  They saw calls for the Electoral College to ignore the voters’ will and install Hillary Clinton instead.

That is to say: The last time a Democratic presidential campaign unambiguously accepted the voters’ verdict, Michael Dukakis was riding around in a tank with a funny helmet on, Guns & Roses was fresh, and your humble correspondent was wearing ridiculous fluorescent orange volleyball shorts.

And now, millions of Americans are hearing themselves accused of “undermining faith in democracy” because they perceive things about the 2020 election—statistical improbabilities, “computer glitches,” unusually high turnouts in key precincts, sudden surges of Biden votes—they think look fishy.

Now, there may be innocent explanations for each quirk. Rumors have been refuted, and apparent oddities have been accounted for. Legal challenges have gone nowhere—some for technical reasons, others on the merits of the evidence and pleadings offered. Although this election broke multiple historical patterns, it’s entirely possible that the unique circumstances of this election—with Donald Trump as an unusually polarizing, political-coalition-shifting figure, and a massive increase in mail-in voting as a Covid-19 precaution radically altering the makeup of the electorate—fully explain why old patterns no longer apply. Or these oddities could simply be happenstance. It would be an extraordinary coincidence if there were never any extraordinary coincidences.

That is to say:  Fraud is not, borrowing from Sherlock Holmes, something improbable which must nevertheless be true because everything else is impossible.

Yet neither is it true that to suspect fraud automatically makes one the equivalent of the “fire can’t melt steel” crowd who thought George W. Bush personally dynamited the World Trade Center. Nor is it true that courts’ refusal to grant the extraordinary relief of delaying a Presidential election establishes definitively, as a matter of fact (as opposed to law) that fraud cannot possibly have occurred. As far as the law is concerned, what cannot be proven does not exist—but ordinary citizens are not bound, in their opinions, by those limits. (We are personally free to believe O.J. Simpson guilty of killing his wife, or not, regardless of what the jury that tried him for murder found.)

Some years ago, I helped litigate a public corruption case where a Southern California city had unlawfully diverted tens of millions of dollars of developer fees to its own use. The city’s senior management (the city manager, police chief, several department heads) all wound up pleading guilty to felonies. It took more than two years, dozens of depositions, thousands upon thousands of pages of grueling document review, and a top-notch forensic accounting firm. Robert Mueller spent over $40 million and two years investigating “Russian collusion” in the 2016 election. Cheaters don’t do their deceit in daylight, and digging it up takes time. 

Progressives now claim to revere the institutions of American law and democracy and profess rage that “faith” in these hallowed institutions is being questioned. And yet they seem to have little faith in those institutions themselves. If the judicial system isn’t capable of seeing off meritless claims without them “steadying the ark” with blacklists, doxxing, harassment, “canceling,” and other vigilante suppression of dissent, after all, how reliable do they really see these institutions as being?

A similar dynamic sometimes operates in the religious context. When skepticism cuts too close to sacred bones, there can be pressure to simply avoid “dangerous” topics. “Do not spread disease germs,” as one concerned churchman once cautioned. “Some things are true that are not very useful.”   

We must reject that doomed approach. Obscurantism (intentionally preventing people from accessing “dangerous” knowledge) rarely works. For every person from whom you successfully hide unhelpful facts, two people conclude what you’re hiding must be serious. And even if it did work, it would not be worth the price. The foundation for any worthwhile morality must be truth. “If we have the truth,” the namesake of Brigham Young University’s law school declared, “it cannot be harmed by examination. If we have not truth, it ought to be harmed.”  Or John Milton: “Let [Truth] and falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?”

Let’s get back to those sim-citizens in the computer game with the “cohesion” bar flashing red. 

Whether or not we think widespread election fraud is a serious possibility, if we’re serious about national unity, the worst possible thing would be to make tensions worse. President Trump’s opponents may think their own past claims about “stolen” “hijacked” elections were perfectly reasonable, whereas their opponents’ are dangerous paranoid conspiracy theories. But the other side isn’t likely to be impressed by self-justifying split hairs. If what’s fine for the blue goose isn’t good for the red gander, the gander’s going to squawk.

The perception that leftists can question the fairness of an election, while that is forbidden to their opponents, must be seen in the broader context of what’s been called the Woke Supremacy—the increased ability and willingness of progressives to use their cultural power to suppress competing ideas. Having obtained “fire superiority,” to borrow a military metaphor, over key cultural centers of gravity, today’s postliberal progressives have taken Thucydides’ ruthless Athenians at Melos as their model:  “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”      

The attitude is “We don’t care about your nonsense. We don’t have to care. We have vast majorities of the civil service, the press, academia, and mass entertainment on our side.”

With apologies to Hilaire Belloc: “Whatever happens, we have got / The Cultural Heights, and they have not.”  

Trepidation that we are slouching toward a Chinese-style “social credit” system, where dissenters are socially excommunicated and locked out of the mainstream economy, may be overblown—but surely less so than a decade ago, or even two weeks ago. That is the dry tinder into which progressives, with their talk of blacklists and “truth and reconciliation commissions,” are tossing a highway flare.

A friend recently remarked that when American soldiers patrolled occupied Baghdad, in the aftermath of the Second Iraq War, they could always tell when they were passing from a Sunni neighborhood to a Shi’ite one:  The poverty level visibly increased. There was no mistaking which faction the regime favored, and whom the regime despised.

America is not supposed to be like that. We are supposed to prosper based on our talents, our drive, and our efforts, not who we are or whether we toe the party line. We have often fallen short of that ideal—but we have rarely outright denied it is the ideal we should strive for. Nor have we usually taken being treated contrary to it lying down. 

People who lack the institutional and cultural weapons their opponents wield against them may accept that asymmetry of power—or they may not.  Betting that your enemies will fight on the ground of your choosing is always unwise.

The German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously maintained that “war is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means.”  For most of human history, the reverse has been equally true:  Politics is simply the continuation of war, with its more sulfurous means only temporarily suspended. “Punish your enemies; reward your friends.” 

What most Americans take for granted—a society where people with even the fiercest disagreements coexist peacefully under the equal rule of law—is not at all the human norm.

In 2017, the rationalist writer Scott Alexander wrote an essay in his “Slate Star Codex” blog entitled “Against Murderism.”  In it, he described liberal democracy as a miraculous piece of “alien machinery”:  

Liberalism is a technology for preventing civil war. It was forged in the fires of Hell—the horrors of the endless seventeenth-century religious wars. For a hundred years, Europe tore itself apart in some of the most brutal ways imaginable—until finally, from the burning wreckage, we drew forth this amazing piece of alien machinery. A machine that, when tuned just right, let people live together peacefully.

It is indeed an amazing piece of machinery our founders built us, and their children and our grandparents and parents fine-tuned. 

In the 1990 film “The Hunt for Red October,” a Soviet KGB officer is in the defecting Russian submarine’s cavernous missile room, trying to ignite a rocket to incinerate the ship. The superb Sean Connery’s character warns Alec Baldwin’s Jack Ryan to “be careful what you shoot at. Some things in here don’t react well to bullets.”

Peering around a missile tube, Ryan is met with a wild hail of gunshots. Ducking, he mutters, indignantly, “I have to be careful what I shoot at?” 

Yes. We do. Even if others don’t. Unlike radicals of the far Left and far Right, we who want the Republic to endure don’t call America irredeemable and systemically rotten from her very beginning or corrupted beyond repair. We don’t want to incinerate the ship so a newer, “woker” or “purer” one can be launched in its place. We want to keep scraping barnacles and installing upgrades. Because the hull and the engines are fundamentally good. 

Nevertheless: Asymmetry is unsustainable. “Being careful” doesn’t mean “surrender,” and “unity” doesn’t mean “submission.”  Our commitment to liberal democracy and our rejection of politics as war must be equal, or it will not last. Every time either side resorts to “by any means necessary,” it’s rolling the iron dice that sooner or later will come up snake eyes. 

The temptation to use the Capitol Hill riot as an excuse to double down on post-liberal “cancel culture,” with the object of crushing the Deplorables once and for all, must be resisted. The effort will almost certainly fail, with disastrous consequences. A wiser approach would be to turn that “social cohesion” bar green by less risky and more charitable means. 

If confidence in elections can be increased without sacrificing other goods, would it not be wise to craft policies to increase it?  When I draft an agreement for a client, I don’t worry that I’m being paranoid or conspiracy-minded when I try to anticipate and close every possible avenue for cheating. My job is not to speculate whether the other side will cheat – it’s to make sure he can’t cheat. Good fences make good neighbors. 

Trust the process you insist others trust. If the 2020 election is no more seriously compromised than usual, then that truth cannot be harmed by examination. To borrow from a wise teacher, “Refrain from these men, and leave them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to naught.”  Blacklists and vigilantism add nothing useful and escalate the erosion of “norms” even more than what they purport to fight. 

Politics cannot be allowed to revert to its natural state—to a continuation of war by other means. Our Constitution was built for this moment and has carried us through darker ones. It and truth will prevail if we let them work and restrain the temptation to make things worse. 

The post A Farewell To Political Arms appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

As I tuned in more closely, I realized that I was listening to a dinner table conversation among a diverse group of Colorado voters. Paying even closer attention, I noticed that the dinner guests were amicably discussing really hot political topics without getting riled.

While I had never listened to a dinner table conversation on the radio before, I was surprised by how warmly and openly these “dinner guests” were talking with their so-called political enemies. Soon, the broadcast narrator explained Denver Public Radio’s novel approach to reconciliation. Rather than grill voters and expose their many differences, the show producers brought voters to a literal dinner table to have a different kind of exchange with each other. Perhaps, the radio producers were aware that the word “reconciliation” stems from the Latin root “to sit again with.” 

When we reconcile with others—whether political rivals, family members, or even neighbors—we seek to restore relationships with each other and attempt to integrate our divergent views into a shared narrative. Unlike forgiveness, which can take place without seeking to mend an interpersonal relationship, reconciliation implies that we actually try to connect with someone who has offended us or whom we have offended. When we reconcile, we cease estrangement, which implies “alienation” and “being strangers to each other.” When we seek reconciliation, we suspend our disbelief about the other’s goodness and seek connection in an attitude of curiosity, humility, and courage. 

My own Experience with Reconciliation

Many years ago as a missionary in southern Japan, I experienced the harrowing, dark experience of being isolated and emotionally hurt by some fellow missionaries. As my “family” in a foreign land, I assumed they would support me rather than make my life more difficult.

At first, I was only verbally isolated. The elders began calling our apartment and only requesting to speak with my native Japanese companion named Sister Suzuki. After weeks of repeat phone calls to check in with my companion, the elders began requesting the presence of my companion at their appointments while I was left to sit outside in the church hallway by myself, feeling unneeded and superfluous. 

Following these experiences that left me feeling ostracized and distressed, one afternoon while I was teaching a missionary lesson, my district leader opened the classroom door, pulled up a chair, and took over the lesson I was teaching. Despite my skill with Japanese and substantial missionary experience, he had earlier commented in our district meeting that “if the sisters just had skills in addition to their faith, they would see baptisms.” Soon thereafter, as what felt at the time like a further personal blow, he and his companion chose to send me to another nearby city for two weeks where I learned via mission gossip that this insensitive elder was determined to “pop [my] pride bubble.” 

Following my two-week hiatus in the nearby city where the elders had sent me, all the missionaries on the island gathered for a conference. While sitting by myself, I noticed Elder Williams walking up to me with a concerned look on his face. Calmly, but directly, he asked: “Are you okay?” 

Knowing him to be a sincere and kind person, I hesitatingly said “No, I’m not,” and spent the next 30-40 minutes in private confidence with him. As I shared my desire to be loved and understood, he hardly said anything, but tears fell down his face in a steady stream of empathy. His presence and caring bridged the great lonely divide I had experienced estranged from all others in a foreign land. 

Following our conversation, I was soon transferred to a new area where I could focus on more positive relationships and experiences. Despite the change of scenery and increased calm, I was not personally reconciled to those who had hurt me; they had just been removed from my life for a period of time. True reconciliation about these wounds would unfold over more than ten years through a cascade of gratifying and peace-giving experiences.  

Shortly after returning to BYU, I recognized this same insensitive elder walking home on the sidewalk opposite my university apartment. While I thought it was just a fluke, I soon realized that he lived just across the street from me. I ended up seeing him in person several times a week. While I never discussed anything with him, provoked by his continued presence, I sought forgiveness through a private, spiritual process that allowed me to move on.  

However, more than a year after returning home, I opened my BYU apartment door to find Sister Suzuki standing before me. This reserved, formal Japanese woman took me in her arms and said over and over again, “I am so sorry that I wasn’t there for you. I didn’t really understand what was going on. Please forgive me. Please forgive me.” As she held me in her arms, I wept. While my wound had been deep, her reassuring arms, words, and obvious understanding of my pain bridged the gap between us. We were reconciled as sisters once again. 

Lastly, more than a decade after my missionary service, I turned around in a church class to find the insensitive elder’s companion seated behind me all the way from Asia. His very presence rattled me and brought back the actual feelings of heartache and distress that I had experienced so many years prior. 

Believing his presence in my life to be an inspired opportunity, I reached out to him. We began a conversation that helped me understand his point of view—especially the decision to send me to another city that I had considered a punishment. After voicing the sources of my pain, I learned that he had been aware of my angst, but honestly assumed that time in another city would help me. Learning about his positive motivations helped me to understand and ultimately forgive him for his part in the darkest days of my mission. Real dialogue led to greater understanding, which lessened any divide still between us.

How does reconciliation relate to peacemaking?

As reflected here, reconciliation is a powerful form of peacemaking. Rather than merely the absence of war, peace implies an increase or restoration of tranquility, calm, understanding, and connection. Truly, peace is no abstraction, and has beautiful substance; once created, this peace can be woven throughout humanity via our sincere, ongoing acts of justice, grace, and love. One powerful way we create peace is through constructively handling the conflicts and misunderstandings we face, both individually and collectively. 

Reconciliation, as I sought with my fellow missionaries, lies at the heart of resolving conflicts, which usually originate from real or perceived incompatible goals. When we seek to reconcile with others, we replace our immediate goal to be right, to win, to hold onto hurt, or to obtain some coveted prize, with the goal of demonstrating love, concern, and connection. “Blessed are the peacemakers” because they choose to create and mend rather than demean and destroy.

To create greater peace through reconciliation with others, then, we must do more than wish or hope for better relationships. President Joseph F. Smith said during the middle of WWI: “Peace comes by preparing for peace, through training the people in righteousness and justice” (Improvement Era, Sept. 1914, pp. 1074-75). 

Adding to this idea, Elder John A. Widtsoe stated: “The only way to build a peaceful community is to build men and women who are lovers and makers of peace. Each individual, by that doctrine of Christ and His Church, holds in his own hands the peace of the world. That makes me responsible for the peace of the world and makes you individually responsible for the peace of the world” (In Conference Report, Oct. 1943, p. 113).

Going even deeper, Prophet David O. McKay declared, “Peace will come and be maintained only through the triumph of the principles of peace, and by the consequent subjection of the enemies of peace, which are hatred, envy, ill-gotten gain, the exercise of unrighteous dominion by [people with power]. Yielding to these evils brings misery to the individual, unhappiness to the home, war among nations (Gospel Ideals, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Col, 1953, p. 280).”

From the social sciences, we know that we are social beings intimately linked together for connection and survival. That means inevitably and inescapably, we are seriously affected by the thoughts, feelings, and actions of those around us. We literally cannot survive for long without each other. From those from Christian faith backgrounds, they believe that God expects us to seek reconciliation with each other even before we go to worship Him (see Matthew 15:22-24; Matthew 15:18). While most of us understand the importance of reconciling with others, we also know that it can be very difficult for a variety of reasons. Rather than dwell on why we resist reconciling with each other, I suggest we focus on how we can (1) prepare to reconcile with others, and (2) begin taking the steps of actually reconciling with others once we are prepared. As the Lord says in one sacred Latter-day Saint text, “if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.” 

How do I prepare to reconcile with others? 

In his recent book Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend, Professor Karl Pillemer of Cornell University lays out tangible steps for overcoming estrangement, especially in families. Following five years of intensive research on the process of reconciliation, he suggests the following: 

(1) Consider if you’re really ready to reconcile. One way to tell that you might be ready is by experiencing feelings of anticipated regret like “Will it be too late?”

(2) Think of key questions to ask yourself such as “What do I want out of a restored relationship?” and  “What if the other person is not willing to reconcile?” 

(3) Develop a plan and consider counseling to sort through your questions and concerns. There is no weakness in seeking wisdom and guidance from professionals.  

(4) Explore your role in the estrangement. This isn’t about accepting blame but understanding how you might have been involved. 

(5) Reduce your expectations about the actual experience of reconciling. Recognize some of the more difficult possibilities that may occur.  For instance, the person may not have changed; may not accept you; they may even hurt you further if you make yourself too vulnerable.

(6) Give up on being right and accept that the other person may never apologize to you.

As we prepare to engage in actual steps of reconciliation, we can flesh out our options and seek guidance and counsel. Some of these steps may require time and considerable personal reflection. 

How do I begin reconciling with others and mending relationships?

Once we are ready to seek direct reconciliation with another person, we should consider the actual steps required to rebuild a relationship if the other person is interested. In my experience, these include: 

1. Sharing your desire to reconcile. This can be conveyed through a kind gesture, a written note, a phone call, or another form of communication.
2. Giving it time and keeping your expectations in check. We are not all ready at the same time to bridge our divides. 
3. Acknowledging what has hurt you with words like: “I felt so much pain when you left, and I never heard from you again” rather than blunt assertions that can feel overly accusing, such as “You hurt me so badly.” 
4. Listening to the other person’s perspective and demonstrating that you heard their perspective by summarizing such as: “I hear you saying that you were confused about how to respond and were waiting for me to initiate the first step?”
5. Apologizing for anything you have done wrong. “I’m so sorry that I never shared what hurt me with you” or “I’m sorry that I tried to tear you down because I was so angry.”  
6. Asking for and accepting forgiveness. “Will you forgive me for saying all those awful things when you left?” and “Thank you for saying sorry. That means so much to me.” 
7. Focusing on the present relationship. “What do you think would help us get to know each other again?” 
8. Beginning to rebuild trust through communication, creating new memories, and acceptance of what is.

Despite the risk of further hurt and rejection, I have learned for myself how much we put ourselves in a position to access greater personal peace, understanding, and connection when we take that leap to reconcile. In fact, Dr. Pillemer of Fault Lines emphasized that “100% of the people who reach out and tried to mend a relationship after estrangement called the act a paramount achievement in their adult lives.” 

As ambassadors for Christ in this ministry of reconciliation, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland promised the following: 

I testify of the tranquility to the soul that reconciliation with God and each other will bring if we are meek and courageous enough to pursue it. Cease to contend with another, the Savior pled. If you know of an old injury, repair it. Care for one another in love. 

My beloved friends, in our shared ministry of reconciliation, I ask us to be peacemakers—to love peace, to seek peace, to create peace, to cherish peace. I make that appeal in the name of the Prince of Peace (“The Ministry of Reconciliation” Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, General Conference October 2018).

From personal experience, I know that reconciliation—even with those who have hurt us deeply—is possible. We may need to forgive certain people through a private, spiritual process as I did, but there are many others who will become our true brothers and sisters again if we open the door to reconciling our differences. May we all hear this appeal from the Lord.  In these times of angst, accusation, and agitation, heaven knows it’s exactly what America needs. 

The post Personal Reconciliation: A Pathway to Peace appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Here is the NIV translation, which has more vivid and relatable imagery for the modern reader:

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

In this parable, Jesus is warning of three related dangers. First of all, he warned us against looking to others and finding faults rather than examining our own faults, or a lack of introspection. Second, he warned about the danger of hypocrisy. Third he warned against harshness in judgment.  In the Savior’s parable, these three lessons are synergistic and mutually reinforcing.

But I want to focus on what seems to me to be a modern-day version of the Mote and the Beam fallacy, the tendency to engage in whataboutism.  Whataboutism is a type of rhetorical fallacy that relies on discrediting or pointing out hypocrisy rather than engaging arguments on the merits. According to the Oxford English Dictionary,  it is “the technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation or raising a different issue.” This term entered into popular usage during the Cold War when criticism of Communist Russia was often deflected by directing attention towards flaws in America or other Western Democracies. Soviet apologists used this technique to divert attention away from the Gulags and mass execution by focusing attention on American racism or sexism. 

At a superficial level, whataboutism seems like the inverse of the mote and beam fallacy. After all, one is exposing hypocrisy and pointing out the beam in another’s eyes. But beyond this superficial difference, it is clear that whataboutism is at the very least a close cousin of the Mote and the Beam Fallacy. The key similarity is that whataboutism allows someone to avoid introspection by finding fault in an external source. By accusing someone else of having a beam in their eye, the individual engaging in whataboutism avoids any need for introspection or objective analysis.   And whataboutism accordingly tends to result in harsh and close-minded judgments and hypocrisy. It is a sort of defense mechanism that projects outward rather than looking inward. 

Whataboutism is destructive in any context. For instance, in a marriage a spouse might rely on whataboutism to deflect criticism and focus on the perceived failings of his spouse. But it has been particularly destructive in the political sphere over the past few years.  Indeed, it seems to me that whataboutism is at the root of much of the rot and partisanship that we see in political discourse today. 

I am far from the only one to advance this argument. Claire Fallon observed in Huffington Post that: “The problem with whataboutism is that hypocrisy is a durable problem (humans being flawed and inconsistent), but it is not the only problem. Forever circling around each other’s hypocrisies pulls us away from necessary conversations about how to reach for and enforce the values we aspire to and hold each other accountable for wrongdoing.”

I will illustrate with a timely example, but it is just one example and I could have chosen from many others. On January 6, 2021, violent protestors who objected to the election results stormed the United States Capitol. Frankly, this was a deplorable and shameful event. We should all be able to unite in criticism of the actions of this mob. We should be able to find common ground and work together to push back against this extremism. 

But almost immediately the whataboutism on both sides began. My friends on the right immediately began calling out the perceived hypocrisy of the fact that those who had supported and defended the Black Lives Matter protests over the summer were now criticizing protests and calling for police intervention. A related critique came from the suggestion of coverage bias, arguing that the media’s reaction would be very different if the shoe were on the other foot. On the other side, my progressive friends bemoaned the fact that those who called for law and order in turbulent summer months were now subdued in their criticism of rioters on the political right. And they quickly argued that the relatively subdued police response would be very difficult if the protesters were persons of color.

I am not suggesting that all of these criticisms are completely meritless. Most of them probably have some merit to them. That is assumed in the story of the motes and beams. We all have our motes and our beams. We are all inconsistent and flawed and at times hypocritical. And pointing out inconsistencies can be important when done with a spirit of loving correction. This kind of comparison can also be valuable in ensuring that public norms are consistently and uniformly applied. 

But I am nevertheless deeply disturbed by how quickly those on both sides tend to respond with these fault-finding arguments. Whataboutism absolves the speaker of any need to carefully engage with the merits of an argument, It is a lot easier to find some hypocrisy in the world and to point it out. In fact, the act of avoiding responsibility and failing to engage in introspection then provides ammunition for whataboutism arguments in the opposite direction. It is a vicious cycle. And when we are done we are left blinded by rage and do not make any progress. To the contrary, whataboutism actually excuses all kinds of horrific actions taken based on the excuse that the “other”side is worse.

As journalist Danielle Kurtzleben of NPR argued, “Whataboutism flattens moral nuances into a black-and-white worldview. But in this worldview, it’s very difficult to be the good guy; idealism is the ultimate naïveté, and anyone who dares to criticize another can be ‘unmasked’ as a hypocrite. This creates a useful moral equivalency, if nobody is perfect, there’s license to do all sorts of imperfect things.”

I am suggesting that we need to carefully check our natural tendency to engage in whataboutism and fault finding. If our first instinct in an argument is to point out hypocrisy in others, we should ask ourselves what purpose that argument will serve. If we are making it merely to tear down someone else, then we need to stop. Similarly, if we find ourselves relying on this crutch as a tool to avoid holding ourselves accountable, that also needs to stop immediately.  We should ask ourselves what hard truths are we avoiding grappling with or what insights are we forsaking when we refuse to turn inward and instead focus outward on the faults of others. 

As disciples of Christ we have a head start. We know that the tendency to whataboutism is a serious problem.  Fortunately, Jesus Christ’s teachings offer a virtuous cycle that counters the vicious cycle of whataboutism. When we focus on our own flaws and imperfections, we will be less concerned with the faults in others. And we do not need to accuse others of hypocrisy or inconsistency. Instead, we will quickly acknowledge our shortcomings and strive to improve. And the same is true for all of our friends and neighbors, who will similarly be more concerned with their own faults and work to improve themselves. 

If we want to heal our nation’s political discourse and social fabric, I believe we need to take accountability for the weaknesses and shortcomings in our positions. We need to improve ourselves and become more christlike. We need to be the gracious and conciliatory peacemakers that Christ calls us to be. 

And we need to start now. 

The post What About Whataboutism is Hurting American Democracy? appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

This has been reinforced as I have become fascinated by politically and emotionally charged events like what I saw in my youth and like what happened at the Capitol. I lived in the DC suburbs in 1968 and personally witnessed the hours-long convoy of National Guard soldiers as they gathered in Washington to try to bring peace to the city where whole blocks of buildings had been burned to the ground. I was among the thousands of innocent spectators who a few years later were tear-gassed at a 4th of July fireworks celebration on the National Mall when anti-war demonstrators clashed with police. And looking overseas, I watched Yeltsin standing on the tank changing the course of history in his country. I saw the Tiananmen Square events unfold before the eyes of the entire world. 

More recently I have watched multiple sources report on civil unrest in cities across the nation. The picture quality is much better these days but the contrasts between the video and audio messages are still troubling at times. It is becoming more difficult to discern the truth of what we are seeing and what we are being told despite, or maybe because of, a flood of varied sources. 

I watched over three hours of non-stop live coverage of the Capitol events as they unfolded. The first coverage I found was on PBS. As other news sources began to cover the evolving events I went over to CNN. After scanning other sources I chose to stay on PBS and CNN – at times running both feeds simultaneously. PBS had more fact-based coverage with little editorializing but they only had a couple of camera angles. CNN had more camera angles but their video images became increasingly disconnected from their audio reporting and editorializing as time went on. At first the crowd was described as “demonstrators” while the images showed highly charged individuals breaching the security perimeter of the Capitol. Then as the crowd became larger with fewer images of struggle between crowd members and law enforcement personnel, the description became that of a “mob” forcibly taking over the Capitol. Later as the crowd voluntarily dispersed with little or no violence, they were described as violent “insurrectionists” and even “domestic terrorists.” 

Once again, throughout the coverage that I witnessed, the verbal description often didn’t seem to correlate with the visual images being projected. 

What to make of it all?

I think the only way to make sense of it all is to look to the inspired writings of those in history who were privileged to see our day in detail – and who were rightfully fascinated with what happens to us. The world does not acknowledge this prophetic source of insight, and yet for me it is the best framework from which to understand the events unfolding around us.

For instance, in light of the intense election disputes plaguing the nation, I marvel that just eight weeks ago (the first week after the presidential election) the entire membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began studying the Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon – a book painstakingly included in the hand written record that Moroni knew would come forth in our day. Moroni was one of those ancient prophets who saw our day, literally in gory detail. He obviously felt that we would be benefited by knowing the story of the Jaredite nation which thrived miraculously and then self-destructed on this continent thousands of years ago. 

What I saw in the Capitol events yesterday felt like echoes of the recorded history of the Jaredite nation. For me, understanding these parallels provides a helpful framework for making sense of our circumstances in 2021. 

The Jaredite nation started in approximately the year 2300 B.C. from humble beginnings but became the greatest nation on the face of the earth at that time (known today among secular scholars as the “Olmec civilization”). It was founded on a deep faith in the power of God to bless and direct His children for good – with a founding narrative based on multiple, dramatic miracles and heavenly interventions. 

Over time they drifted from that faith and narrative and eventually rebelled against the very God they had previously invoked as the source of their peace and prosperity. And here’s where this all starts to feel applicable to the events at the Capitol – and why I sincerely believe they could have consequences of Biblical proportions. 

As this ancient nation spiraled down into ever-increasing conflict, two competing factions emerged as the dominant sources of political power. Somehow the leaders of these two factions – Coriantumr and Cohor –  were able to persuade all of the people to align themselves with one side or the other. Everyone had to choose which side they would join. Remarkably, in the record we have, eventually only one person remained above the fray as a neutral observer: the prophet and historian Ether, whose writing from a cave helped make the surviving record we have today possible. 

The contention escalated because “there were many who rose up, who were mighty men, and sought to destroy Coriantumr by their secret plans of wickedness.” But the warring factions were nearly equal in their strength and “Coriantumr, having studied, himself, in all the arts of war and all the cunning of the world, wherefore he gave battle unto them who sought to destroy him.” 

Cohor was succeeded by others with continued death and destruction until there were only a few remaining on each side. The prophet Ether then records the last few days of the conflict when after further battles of attrition Coriantumr kills his single remaining opponent and becomes the last survivor of the war that completely destroyed the entire Jaredite nation. 

The real Jaredite tragedy is that neither side had a cause worth shedding blood over, yet everyone became committed to shedding blood. What destroyed the Jaredite nation was that the people, individually and collectively, chose a path of ever-increasing contention and created an environment where everyone eventually joined in the fight. 

Then, as now, ever-increasing contention inevitably leads to bloodshed. Usually someone steps forward and restores at least a semblance of peace. Sadly for the Jaredites, no one stepped forward. May we pray for leaders who will continue to step forward now.

What about for us – in our day? 

With the results of the Georgia Senate runoff races coming to a conclusion last week, some Trump supporters are pointing to them as evidence of yet more fraud – “see, they even managed to swing both congressional elections!” 

I would argue the opposite – that these results are strong evidence that there was no massive fraud or irregularities in the Georgia presidential vote. It was a second test of the will of the citizens of Georgia and the result seemed conclusive evidence that Biden won the popular vote fair and square. 

Then the US Capitol erupted in chaos. While there was near-unanimous condemnation of the breach and the events that led up to it, the ensuing chaos is likely to galvanize the underlying ideological political conflict and could easily set the stage for a potentially dangerous escalation of contention (although, for the immediate term, it appeared to have calmed things down and shaken people on both sides to their senses). 

As with the Jaredites, the two warring political factions are persuading people that they have to take sides in this conflict. President Trump has clearly won many to his side, convincing them that they must enter the fray and rebuking anyone who declines to join him – friend or foe alike. With the breach of the Capitol, the Democratic side can now continue doing likewise:  convincing many others that they must enter the fray unless they want to risk a similar rebuke for anyone who declines to join.  

That very dynamic seemed to be on full display by the end of the day across the country. Within my own circle of friends and family many had taken sides before the day was over. And of course the divisions were deep and almost equally divided in numbers. Who doesn’t have a strong opinion about what happened at the Capitol? 

The stage seems to be setting up for a conflict between the two political factions of our day which could be catastrophic for the country. 

What is to be done? What should we individually do about it all?

Maybe it’s time to step back and take a broader view. Several recent quotes from living prophets provide what I believe to be the most helpful counsel and insight for how we should respond to the turmoil of our day.

President Nelson: The most important thing – Let God prevail

Amidst the seemingly endless dramatic conflict that can take so much of our attention, President Nelson raises something that offers to frame everything in a very different perspective. “These surely are the latter-days, and the Lord is hastening His work to gather Israel. That gathering is the most important thing taking place on earth today.” This statement clearly distinguishes the relative importance of God’s work over that of the current political contests. The gathering he describes is first and foremost a gathering of hearts and minds in united commitment to the principles taught by Jesus Christ regarding love of God and of all mankind. Since this isn’t always easy to understand for people, he added further clarification by saying, “one of the Hebraic meanings of the word Israel refers to a person who is willing to let God prevail in his or her life.” He also reminded us that “God does not love one race more than another. His doctrine on this matter is clear. He invites all to come unto Him, “black and white, bond and free, male and female.”” In other words, the most important thing going on in the world today is the active gathering of ALL those who will let God prevail in their lives. As he has reiterated often before, nothing else is more important or of more consequence.

President Oaks: Generous Civic Engagement

Lest we think that we must passively submit to political policies that we disagree with, President Oaks has said, “This does not mean that we agree with all that is done with the force of law. It means that we obey the current law and use peaceful means to change it. It also means that we peacefully accept the results of elections. We will not participate in the violence threatened by those disappointed with the outcome.” For those of us who struggle with the current level of political acrimony he said encouragingly, “As I have lived for many years in different places in this nation, the Lord has taught me that it is possible to obey and seek to improve our nation’s laws and also to love our adversaries and our enemies.”

Elder Uchtdorf: Stay Hopeful (Even Today) for Unimaginable Good to Come

Elder Uchtdorf summed up a course of action that can provide a guide for our daily activities in this tumultuous world when he quoted from Doctrine and Covenants 123:17 “cheerfully do all things that lie in [your] power; and then may [you] stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.” He then concluded his remarks with a most hopeful apostolic promise: “And I promise that the Lord will cause unimaginable things to come from your righteous labors.” Unimaginable is the word that stands out to me in what God can make of our righteous labors – no matter how humble or seemingly insignificant they may be. 

In summary, the forces of contention may have just escalated to a new and even more feverish pitch as a result of the election disputes and the breach of the Capitol building in Washington. The Jaredite record provides a clear warning of where this path can lead if we don’t change our ways – especially in a country so evenly divided on our points of contention. Prophetic counsel from ancient and modern prophets provide timely perspective and instruction on how we can navigate the daily challenge of being true to our principles while resisting the urge toward fear, anger, hate and contention. Isn’t that just what America needs right now?

While others continue to obsess about who is going to win, to prevail, and to dominate in terms of political and cultural power, may we encourage others to heed the call of living prophets to center our attention on another question:  how we can “let God prevail” in our own lives. 

The post More Thoughts on the Capitol Breach appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

If it wasn’t already obvious, yesterday’s desecration of the temple of democracy forces an important question upon American conservatives:  Is it time to look (really) hard at the image in our own mirror? 

Judging by the torrent of condemnations yesterday, including among the President’s own supporters, this is already happening. A good number of congressional leaders who had been ready to fight for a renewal of President Trump’s leadership, stepped back for different reasons. And devoted Trump-supporter Hugh Hewitt wrote that “Trump has shown an incomprehensible indifference to mayhem.”

In comparison with President Trump’s own attitude, President-elect Biden stood to address the nation yesterday while the chaos still swirled around the capital (watch it here). Regardless of what you think about his past or his policies, it’s hard to deny what was evident in this man’s words.  

After decrying “an assault on the citadel of Liberty,” Joe Biden said: “Let me be very clear. The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America, do not represent who we are. What we’re seeing are a small number of extremists, dedicated the lawlessness. This is not dissent, it’s disorder. It’s chaos. It borders on sedition. And it must end, now.”

At that point, the President-elect could have raged against the former President. He could have issued blistering condemnations of those seeking to challenge his own election.  He could have taken advantage of this moment to really put those conservatives in their place (and no one would have thought twice about whether he was justified).  

Yet Biden did none of those things.  Instead, he called on President Trump to “step up” and speak out publicly against the violence. Then, with a demeanor that was visibly shaken, Biden modeled how to do that – saying, “Like so many other Americans, I am genuinely shocked and saddened that our nation — so long the beacon of light and hope for democracy — has come to such a dark moment.”

“Think what our children watching television are thinking,” he added – before pivoting to reaffirming hope:

Through war and strife, America’s endured much and we will endure here and we will prevail again and we’ll prevail now. The work of the moment and the work of the next four years must be the restoration of democracy, of decency, honor, respect, the rule of law. Just plain simple decency. The renewal of a politics that’s about solving problems, looking out for one another, not stoking the flames of hate and chaos. As I said, America’s about honor, decency, respect, tolerance. That’s who we are. That’s who we’ve always been.

These are the words of a leader – of someone with some real goodness and wisdom.    

That doesn’t mean everything he’ll do as a leader will be good and wise – or that President Trump hasn’t also shown goodness and wisdom at different points in his tenure. Yet when President Trump added his own statement, there was no sign of being chastened, or moved.  Even after blood had been shed in the nation’s capital, he couldn’t help but continue to justify himself, writing on Twitter:  “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.” Addressing the protestors, he added: “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”

In the closing prayer in the middle of the night, Senate Chaplain Barry Black said, “These tragedies have reminded us that words matter, and that the power of life and death is in the tongue.” One of the many political messages resounding through the Book of Mormon, how a larger group can be “stirred up to anger” by a smaller number – even to violence. 

When that happens, surely the silver lining is the solidarity we witnessed yesterday across the political spectrum as people rose to stand against it.  Indeed, we can be grateful, as Chaplain Black prayed, that perhaps this has “strengthened our resolve to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies domestic as well as foreign.”

But who are those “enemies domestic”? Is it anyone with concerns about the fairness of the recent elections?   

Of course not.  Yet that insinuation came up often yesterday, with George Will himself writing, “Trump, Hawley and Cruz will each wear the scarlet ‘S’ of a seditionist.

While it’s right to push back on voices of division, this is one step too far. After all, the vast majority of Americans concerned with election security were shocked and saddened by the actions of those in the capital. 

In an 1838 address, Abraham Lincoln noted a “growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of Courts.” His words ring out with eerie prescience. In our current news and social media bubbles these “wild and furious passions” multiply.

When it comes to deceptive claims, many have responded by marginalizing, ignoring, and refusing to dignify or engage with them. Clearly, this approach does not always work.

We must find ways to air and explore those differences together, which can act as an important safety pressure valve, and help our people sort out true and false claims (part of our motivation for publishing the map of election disagreements).

For that reason, if the result of the violence yesterday is to further embolden attempts to silence or censor unpopular viewpoints, that would be deeply concerning. Simply put, there’s a difference between the voices of those stirring up to anger – and those raising sincerely-held concerns. 

That line was blurred yesterday in many commentaries and speeches. In the understandable pressure and passion of the moment, Democrats also spoke in black and white terms such as “truth vs. Trump.” 

To be clear:  even when it comes to the question of the election, or the value of the Trump presidency, there are still competing ways to see the truth of these matters. And once again, it’s dangerous if this becomes a pretext to further close down the space where Americans can disagree. 

At least when it comes to politics. How we treat each other is another story – and one in which, arguably, there should be less room for disagreement. 

In October of 2020, Dallin H. Oaks affirmed where Latter-day Saints stand, “We peacefully accept the results of elections. We will not participate in the violence threatened by those disappointed with the outcome. In a democratic society, we always have the opportunity and the duty to persist peacefully until the next election.”

In one touching moment from the evening Congressional proceedings, Senator Lankford from Oklahoma stood visibly shaken by what had happened – and started pointing at his fellow congressmen and women around him:  “That person, that person, that person – is not my enemy.  They are fellow Americans.”

Among the other take-away messages from yesterday, we hope this can be one of the lessons for conservatives and liberals alike.  The Other Side isn’t “the enemy.” 

The enemy is ugliness, deception and aggression – which shows up on both sides! 

It’s true that we can all be really quick to call out the injustices on the other side, while excusing those on their own. As one friend told us today, “my conservative friends expressed all sorts of righteous indignation this summer – and now my liberal friends (who didn’t express a whole lot of condemning against the rioting this summer) are full of righteous indignation now.”

Clearly, if we refuse to acknowledge any danger coming from our own side of the political aisle, we’ve traded truth for tribal politics – with disloyalty to the team more important than anything else. That’s no doubt how those heckling Senator Romney in the airport rationalize their actions as “defending freedom” after calling him a “traitor” (to The Team) and telling him, “You were voted in as a conservative to represent the conservative constituents. Period.”

No.  That’s not what Senator Romney was elected to do. And he knows it. 

Our loyalty as believers (myself included) must ultimately be to Truth, to America, and to God…not to a certain tribal Team.

Not to Biden. And not to Trump. 

It’s the ideals which unite us – and to which we can look.   

Prominent American publications wrote this year of what they described as a perhaps “inevitable” break up of our nation, perhaps even civil war.

We believe in America. We do not believe such an outcome is inevitable. But is that what you believe? 

WE CAN STILL DO THIS as Americans!  We end with two more excerpts from President-elect Biden:   

Notwithstanding what I saw today and we’re seeing today, I remain optimistic about the incredible opportunities. There has never been anything we can’t do when we do it together. And this awful display today was bringing home to every Republican and Democrat and independent in the nation that we must step up.

He added, underscoring the word: “This is the United States of America…For nearly two and a half centuries, we, the people in search of a more perfect union, have kept our eyes on that common good. America is so much better than what we’ve seen today….”

So much better than what we’ve seen today.  That’s what our incoming President believes. 

Do we? In the year ahead, we’ll all find out.  

The post Not Who We Are…Right? appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

To be clear, most Americans (about 60% of them, according to recent polling) believe the election was fair and legitimate.  But it’s equally clear that it’s not just President Trump who has concerns with the election, with a Quinnipiac poll over a month after the election finding an astounding 77% of Republican respondents believing there was widespread fraud in the presidential election, and a full 34% of all respondents believing that Biden’s victory was illegitimate. 

34% is not 3%.  And it appears these disagreements won’t be going away anytime soon. Because we believe trying to hear each other out still matters (for lots of reasons), we’ve worked on another “disagreement map” of the competing interpretations involved.  As with our previous map of COVID-19 disagreements, the aim of the map is not to lay out the evidence supporting different positions—but instead, to simply sketch out as best we can what those positions are, attempting what Charles Taylor once called a “perspicuous contrast.”

That means we try to summarize competing arguments in their strongest and most compelling terms—comparing them side by side, in as fair a light as possible. Even so, we’ve found these maps to be remarkably irritating to some people on both sides. In this case, we’ve already had people tell us this article “trivializes a crime”—with one friend telling us, “So long as we’re talking about how we feel and are seeing each other’s perspective, everything is going to be fine. Really? Sometimes it’s just about finding the truth and acknowledging it in the open light of day.” No doubt, we’ll hear similar things from democrats concerned that we’re giving a platform to dangerous, and reckless accusations.  

So, to be clear:  our goal is not to suggest that it doesn’t matter which side you believe, or to argue there is no substantial evidence to validate one side or the other, or even to suggest that both sides are equally valid or supported. Rather, we’re simply trying to capture in summary form, the contours of contrasting belief that currently exist on the matter.

In these heated times, it’s remarkable how much people (on all sides) struggle to understand distinctly and fairly what political opponents actually believe. (So much easier to hear what your favorite critic of Those People tells you they really believe). We’ve been listening carefully to the different arguments being made and doing our best to hear the nuances.  So without further ado, with an aim of encouraging deeper listening (even and especially now) between Americans who might disagree on these matters, we provide this juxtaposition of views, created by our own staff (that doesn’t agree on what happened in the election—and in many cases, like other Americans, isn’t completely sure what the full truth is).

1.Evidence. Is there any legitimate evidence to support the concerns of those who believe there was substantial, and potentially decisive fraud in the recent Presidential election? 

• No, there simply is not. With all the reviews that have been conducted, no damning evidence of fraud or even serious voter irregularities has been uncovered—at least not any more than happens in normal years, and certainly not sufficient to overturn the election. 
• Yes, there definitely is. As evident across nearly a thousand affidavits sworn under oath, there is a surprisingly large amount of documented evidence of serious fraud—significantly more than happens in normal years, and enough to potentially overturn the election.  The kind of conclusive evidence people demand will only be uncovered through a thorough forensic analysis of ballot handling processes (machines and electronic voting machine logs) that have been mostly out of reach.

2.Voting Logistics. Given these extraordinary changes in voting connected with the pandemic and updated technology, doesn’t all this make fraud easier—with the possibility of a small group able to exploit the process in order to influence the results?    

• Sure, you can believe that—along with a variety of other zany conspiracy theories that more and more people seem to be gravitating towards.  The truth is these technologies have been proven to be trustworthy—and the choice to vote-by-mail a safe one, with results that came from it, confirmed as reliable.  
• So much easier.  Why so quick to write off any evidence that this may have happened? Is it really that hard to understand how changes in voting laws and ballot tabulation technologies and processes have made our elections more susceptible to fraud that could subvert the will of the people—and how that would be extremely difficult to detect?  

3.The Courts. If the evidence is legitimate, why were most of the electoral fraud cases dismissed by courts?  

• The suits challenging the election results were dismissed because the claims are actually bogus and baseless, on closer examination. That’s why so many judges considered the evidence and dismissed dozens of legal challenges.
• Most of the suits challenging the election results were dismissed on technicalities—and not because they looked carefully into the evidence. Other judges didn’t see this as within their jurisdiction or feel comfortable ruling on something so politically charged. 

4.A Full and Fair Investigation. Has the evidence of fraud been examined adequately and fully? 

• Yes, it has. Across these many suits brought before courts, judges have been able to examine the evidence, just as Americans would expect. Yet week after week, with the allegations examined (and reexamined) by election officials and courts alike, nothing truly substantial has been found.   
• Not at all. In addition to being dismissed, avoided, or written off entirely by election and judicial officials, most mainstream journalists have insisted from the beginning there is no evidence worth considering—and therefore, largely ignored the true merits of the arguments being made. 

5.‘Keeping Up the Fight.’ What are we to make of the willingness of some to continue fighting, even after so many courts have ruled?  

• This reflects a stubborn unwillingness to yield to the institution we’ve established in our American system to arbitrate disputes like this—our courts, which deserves to be trusted in these matters.  
• This reflects a willingness to continue the fight for fair elections and freedom itself, despite widespread institutional forces and barriers rising to oppose both—all of which have crucial implications for the United States in this critical juncture. 

6.President Trump. What is the underlying, driving motivation behind President Trump’s continued efforts to challenge these results?  

• Isn’t it obvious? This man can’t accept defeat—and will do anything to hang onto power, just as many feared he would. This is about ego, pride, narcissism, self-preservation, and an utter lack of graciousness and respect for the American system.   
• Despite what so many accuse him of, the President is fighting for what he (and millions of other Americans) believe to be the right thing.  His persistence reflects optimism and courage, rather than the despicable motives his critics have always insisted drives him.     

7.Republican Leadership. How should we understand all the Republican leaders supporting President Trump’s challenge? 

• This is the sad reflection of this president’s stronghold on the entire party, with people doing his bidding for fear of him and his many supportive voters turning against them.  It’s really about fear of Trump and election consequences for themselves.  
• Contrary to the remarkably incendiary rhetoric against them, this support is because many of these leaders are honestly persuaded and honestly believe these electoral concerns to be legitimate, and the fight to be worthy. It’s also about trying to represent voters in their states who share these same concerns.    

8.The Republican Base. What about all the rank-and-file members of the Republican party who believe these accusations to be true as well? 

• This is the sad result of so many normal Americans being swept up in these florid and baseless allegations. It’s because people are angry, and leaders are stirring them up.   
• This is because many Americans honestly believe these concerns to be valid and worth looking into more. It’s because people care about America and preserving fairness in our system.   

9.Threatening Democracy. Do these ongoing challenges to and questioning of the election results represent a threat to democracy?  

• You bet they do. In addition to undermining public trust in the election results, such an inexplicable unwillingness to concede defeat sets a dangerous precedent in a country whose history centers critically on a peaceful transfer of power.  
• No, they don’t.  It’s the lack of willingness to examine legitimate evidence that represents the real threat to our democracy. Rather than trying to hurt our American system, those seeking a rigorous investigation into these allegations are earnestly seeking to preserve our democratic institutions as trustworthy and fair.    

10.What’s the Point? What good will come from more examination of the evidence—aren’t people already decided?  

• They are.  And any other further investigation will only serve to reinforce entrenched biases on each side. Furthermore, to do so would be to fall into yet another ploy by Republican leaders to undermine trust in the election and potentially overturn results.  Why should we give any other room for that to happen? 
• Many are—but not all.  And state legislatures that have looked into the evidence have been persuaded there is a basis for concern.  If there is any justification for that, why wouldn’t we want to investigate enough to know it? And if no justification ends up being found, the additional inquiry could be reassuring to Trump supporters that at least the matter was fully vetted.    

The post Mapping Public Disagreements about Election Challenges appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

At the transformative moment in Latter-day Saint history when members of the Church of Jesus Christ believe God the Father and His Son appeared to Joseph Smith while seeking true religion, he asked “which of all the sects was right…and which I should join?”

The response shocked the boy prophet: “I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong.”

The divine warning went on to highlight specific “creeds” that had misled adherents and leaders that had become “corrupt” as Isaiah foretold: “They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”

Joseph was “forbade” repeatedly to “join with any of them”—a possibility that had “never entered into [his] heart” because he had never considered that “all were wrong.”  (Notice that he was taught not that these other churches were all wrong, but they all were wrong).

We tend towards the opposite—condemning our opponents as being all wrong, rather than recognizing goodness and truth they still possess. In the same moment, we can insist our side is all right, while overlooking evidence of our own troubling creeds and corruptions. 

Why is it so difficult to consider the possibility that all the major options in society’s great contests might, indeed, simply be wrong (in the sense that they don’t contain 100% of the truth)?

As Nathaniel and Terryl Givens suggested prior to the election, “If you are a Christian, you are politically homeless. This has always been true. Now it is obvious.” Calling this sort of “exile” the “plight of all sincere Christians,” they go on to cite David French as saying: 

More and more, thoughtful (mainly young) Christians say to me, “I’m pro-life, I believe in religious freedom and free speech, I think we should welcome immigrants and refugees, and I desperately want racial reconciliation. Where do I fit in?” The answer is clear. Nowhere.

So, how do we become so convinced we must pick a side?  Maybe because we get swept up in what Hugh Nibley once called the “neighborhood brawl.” I recently found this excerpt from Approaching Zion so fitting to this moment in our country: “Satan’s masterpiece of counterfeiting is the doctrine that there are only two choices, and he will show us what they are.”  In this way, the adversary “convinces us that we are making the vital choice when actually we are choosing between branches in his road.” He continues: 

Which one we take makes little difference to him, for both lead to destruction. This is the polarization we find in our world today. Thus we have the choice between Shiz and Coriantumr—which all Jaredites were obliged to make. We have the choice between the wicked Lamanites … and the equally wicked Nephites. Or between the fleshpots of Egypt and the stews of Babylon, or between the land pirates and the sea pirates of World War I, or between white supremacy and black supremacy … or between Catholic and Protestant, or between fundamentalist and atheist, or between right and left—all of which are true rivals, who hate each other.  

Nibley continues:

A very clever move of Satan!—a subtlety that escapes us most of the time.  So I ask Latter-day Saints, “What is your position frankly regarding the merits of cigarettes vs. cigars, wine vs. beer, or heroin, vs. LSD?” It should be apparent that you take no sides.  By its nature the issue does not concern you. It is simply meaningless as far as your life is concerned.  “What, are you not willing to stand up and be counted?” No, I am not.

Does that mean we should never pick a side—or stand up for various good causes around us?  Of course not. But neutrality is not always the inspired or better place to be, either.  

It’s simply to point out how easy it can be for all of us to get swept up in either/or battles between black and white options—neither of which represent God’s will.  Nibley elaborates on the danger of this: 

This fatal polarization is a very effective means of destruction.  As the Romans knew, “divide and conquer” is the means of gaining power and leadership. So we have always been told we must join the action to fight against communism, or must accept the leadership to fight fascism, or must join Persia against Rome. … Or in World War I, you just join the Allies or the Central Powers.  While all the time there is only one real choice—between accepting the gifts of God for what they are on his terms and going directly to Him and asking for whatever you need, or seeking the unclean gift, as it is called, of power and gain. Remember, Moroni ends by saying; “Deny not the gifts of God, … and touch not the evil gift, nor the unclean thing [filthy lucre and so forth]” (Moroni 10:8,30). So that’s the choice I think we have.  

I’m not optimistic that any of this will persuade many minds on either side of our great political divides. People are so deeply embedded in their respective tribal politics that some of what I’m raising may be unsettling, even threatening, to deep-seated convictions.  And after all, it took God Himself appearing to Joseph Smith for him to realize both sides were wrong. Not until then did he recognize that reality.  

If that’s at all true in our day, how easy it is for us to miss.  So much easier to see our side as the Great Defender of all that is good, and the other side as the Great Threat.  All matters of political disagreement, then, become about making choices between right and wrong.  

But what if we’re not?  What if we’re choosing between wrong and wrong? Or partial truth and partial truth? And essentially pursuing different “branches” of the same road?  

In that case, it may not even matter to the adversary which fork we go down, as long as enough of us go on each side to keep the fight going. The point is to keep us at each other’s throats. 

And forget that there are believers on both the left and the right. That there are mothers and fathers on both sides.  There is goodness on both sides, and truth on both sides—along with bad folks on each side too.  

We think everyone on the other side is so different. They’re not! It’s more like a Venn diagram with plenty of crossover. But we get so fixated in our mold that we assume our opponents are completely wrong.

And downright evil.  Why, then, wouldn’t you hate them?  

I believe Satan wants us to hate each other—and to remain in perpetual conflict with each other.  

And I find it interesting that recent circumstances of a closely divided country seem to be creating maximal contention.  What if the point isn’t to choose either side, but to opt out of contention entirely?  

In that case, if both sides of the political spectrum are in fact wrong in important ways, then practically, what does that really mean?  Certainly, it doesn’t mean the outcome of these prevailing battles getting all the attention is meaningless or unimportant. Maybe it simply highlights other things even more important. And it might even suggest a different way of proceeding entirely—and another way of approaching the national “brawl” continuing to play out before us. As Nibley goes on to ask, “What then of the choice between entering into divisions, schools, controversies, contentions, vanities, or avoiding them? How can you avoid them?”  

He responds, “If you don’t want to get involved in the neighborhood brawl, there’s only one thing you can do—move out of the neighborhood. [Yet] we refuse to do that.  [But since] both sides are wrong … you must move out of the neighborhood.”

Nibley, of course, is not referring to physically moving away—or refusing to participate in influencing the pressing conversations of the day. It’s something else he’s speaking to—something less dramatic, but harder to achieve:  continuing to engage publicly, but in a Godly way – without the vitriol and vengeance we see on both sides today.  

Nibley adds, “We of course don’t do that without supernatural aid.”

He’s right.  It’s hard—incredibly hard—to extricate oneself from the latest greatest brawl (take your pick—Trump v. Biden, Black v. Blue Lives Matter, Lebron v. Jordan).  So, it will probably require divine assistance for any of us to make any progress there. Nibley concludes:

That’s where it comes in; the whole thing is supernatural. That changes everything, of course. The argument then ceases. We are dealing in absolutes there.  That’s where the gospel comes in. Consider the stories of all the great patriarchs—Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Noah, Jared, Ether, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Lehi, and Alma. All are the stories of individuals who faced the problem of contending against the world—a world in rapid decline.  Why are these stories told to us in such harrowing detail? Do you think they don’t apply?  

Oh, they do.  Exactly now.  

And I pray we will all hear those voices, before it’s too late.  

The post What was Really the Choice in the 2020 Election? appeared first on Public Square Magazine.