In 2016 and 2020 I wrote open letters to Trump-supporting Latter-day Saints, and even though they both got some traction (reaching 80k+ views), I’ve had mixed feelings about writing another.
- Hasn’t everyone made up their minds (or even voted) already?
- Why should I spend my energy arguing against Trump when the Democrats so consistently disappoint me? (More about that below!)
Then I stumbled onto a video of a Trump supporter who changed his mind in the process of interviewing a Harris supporter. The Trump supporter simply had no idea about basic things that I thought everyone knew — like that the stock market has performed well under Biden.
Could some Trump supporters be persuaded to change their minds? Could some of the one-third of American adults who typically don’t vote in presidential elections be persuaded to get out and vote on Tuesday, November 5th?
Maybe.
So here’s my effort to do something — an updated and final version of my 2020 letter. As I explain toward the end, I’m not writing as someone who considers myself a Democrat (I don’t) or a political centrist (again, I don’t). I’m writing as someone who believes that Trump is particularly bad for the United States and the world, for the reasons I outline below.
I’m still hopeful for the future of America in all our complexity, and at my best I harbor no sense of contempt if you see all of this differently.
***
Dear LDS Trump-Supporter —
Growing up in Utah County during the nineties, I couldn’t hear the end of Bill Clinton’s sex scandal in the White House. It was one of the first stories in my political awareness, and the whole thing affected me so deeply that for years if you’d asked me what I thought of the Democrats, I would have told you they were horrible — almost solely because of what Clinton did. It seemed to me that my entire community agreed, and I believed that a sex scandal like Clinton’s was a deal breaker for Latter-day Saints.
Then along came Trump, a man who cheated on all three of his wives, paid off porn stars, raved about his daughter’s sex appeal, posed for the cover of Playboy, and faced more than two dozen accusations of sexual misconduct, including being found guilty for sexual assault by a jury of his peers.
And yet LDS voters gave him the highest approval of any religious group in 2017. In 2018 and 2022 Mormons had the chance to band together and protest for a better primary challenger in the Republican party. Instead, many supported him.
To me, it felt disorienting.
I can’t help but think of the words of Trump’s own sister, who said, “He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean … if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this.”
And Trump’s depravity isn’t limited to several dozen sex scandals. The scale is mind-boggling. The never-ending insults, bullying the least fortunate, mocking the religious (including Mitt Romney’s garments), stiffing contractors, withdrawing healthcare from his ill nephew, cheating on tax returns, using “charity” to funnel money to himself, refusing to rent to Black people, pathologically lying, and much more. These things aren’t the marks of someone who is “rough around the edges.” These are the marks of someone who is fundamentally at odds with the heart of the stated ideals of the LDS Church.
“He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean … if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this.” — Maryanne Trump Barry, Donald’s sister
Having said these things, you likely still have reasons why you’re supporting Trump. After all, even someone who is morally depraved could be worth supporting — if they had plenty of other noble qualities that benefited the world.
The problem, as I explore below, is that even Trump’s so-called strengths are surface deep. He’s gold foil — veneer without substance, a phony act. He’s a PR genius and he’s TV smart, but he lacks the generous and noble qualities we celebrate in otherwise deeply flawed leaders of the past.
I understand how that might sound unconvincing, so let’s get specific.
Here are reasons I’ve heard you give for why you support Donald Trump, along with explanations for why I hope you’ll reconsider.
“I’m concerned about inflation.”
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, inflation ballooned almost everywhere around the world.
Why? Why did inflation rise in, say, Germany, France, and Spain? Was it because of the Biden-Harris administration? Or might the global economy be bigger than any one person, including a president?
The truth is that the causes of our current inflation woes are complicated and include supply issues, post-Covid consumer demand, Covid relief funds, and business tactics. (Analysis from Fortune found that as much as 53% of inflation in early 2023 was due to corporate price hikes.)
This isn’t to excuse the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (signed by Trump) or the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (signed by Biden), both of which contributed to inflation and were rife with cronyism and corruption. As AP reports, $280 billion of these relief measures were potentially stolen and at least $120 billion was wasted or misspent.
All of that corruption deserves outrage, and I understand why people are angry at government for what happened. I‘m angry about it. Inflation has been terrible, as was much of the response to Covid from both parties.
I just think the notion that “Biden-Harris caused inflation” is too simple. The truth is far more complex when seen through an international lens, and there’s little proof anyway that Trump would have prevented our inflationary wave.
And most importantly, as the Wall Street Journal revealed in their survey of financial experts, most economists currently say that Trump’s policies will make inflation worse.
“Most economists think inflation, interest rates and deficits would be higher under the policies former President Donald Trump would pursue in a second administration than under those proposed by Vice President Kamala Harris.” — The Wall Street Journal (source)
“I’m worried about sex trafficking.”
I haven’t seen this worry surface in LDS circles as much as I did back in 2020 — perhaps because Tim Ballard of Operation Underground Railroad was exposed as a serial sexual abuser, and his decades-long PR stunt about sex trafficking lost some steam.
Given that, I’ll only mention that investigations and prosecutions for child sex trafficking fell under Trump and would likely fall under his presidency again. As is the case with so much that Trump does, he talks tough and makes the right PR moves about stuff like sex trafficking. He gets people to think he’s doing a great job. But in reality, it’s hot air.
“I just care about abortion.”
Perhaps you say you’re voting for Trump because you’re a single-issue voter, and your issue is abortion. But why? Was Jesus’s ministry a single-issue ministry? Jesus never spoke about abortion, even though other people in the ancient world did. Why make abortion the single Christian issue when Christ didn’t mention it but could have?
This doesn’t mean abortion isn’t important. It just means that of the hundreds of issues at play in an election, it seems odd to be a single-issue voter about this one thing. It’s particularly odd when it comes to defending Trump, who dodges questions about whether he’s been involved with someone who’s had an abortion and who was pro-choice until he ran for president.
Was Jesus’s ministry a single-issue ministry? Jesus never spoke about abortion, even though other people in the ancient world did. Why make it your single issue?
Consider the position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints here, which says that “some exceptional circumstances may justify an abortion.” Given this, you might sympathize with the LDS mother of six who had a late-term abortion under incredibly painful circumstances. She was set to have twins, but faced complications late in her pregnancy that resulted in one twin dying and the other facing certain death. Even worse, the pregnancy also put her life at risk. So, rather than have three deaths in the world, she saved her own life to help raise the six kids she’d already given birth to. That’s what a late-term abortion looks like — and why they should be legal and rare (as they are, representing 1% of total abortions).
Finally, note that for decades abortions have consistently decreased more under Democratic presidents than Republican presidents. For instance, under George W. Bush abortions held more or less steady while under Obama the number of abortions comparatively plummeted. You might not want to admit it because it goes against your narrative, but it’s true. Voting for a Republican president isn’t a guarantee that we’ll see fewer abortions. In fact, the opposite may be true, since expanding access to birth control can reduce total abortions.
“I’m concerned about out-of-control government spending.”
The deficit increased more under Trump in his first three years — before Covid-19 — compared to the last three years under Obama.
In the wake of Covid-19, the deficit exploded to unprecedented levels under Trump, enough to make the 2009 deficit increase look paltry.
It’s true that the deficit has continued to grow under Biden, but what evidence is there that Trump would actually do something different than Biden has done on this front? It seems like all politicians, including Trump, are resigned to ballooning the deficit.
“I want a successful businessman in office.”
If someone were to get rich robbing a bank, we wouldn’t call them successful. Likewise, we shouldn’t call Trump successful since he got rich by stiffing contract workers, defrauding students at a phony university, cheating on his taxes (paying his daughter $700k in consulting fees while also paying her as an employee), and more. That’s not “success.” That’s fraud.
You also know by now that Donald Trump’s business record isn’t impressive. He received $413 million from his dad over the course of his life. If he had put that money into an index fund for 30 years, he would have more than $3 billion dollars. Instead, he’s now worth less than that and owes more than $400 million to some unknown lender.
He’s lost money on every business endeavor he’s touched with the exceptions of Trump Tower and The Apprentice, where he pretended to be a successful businessman on TV and licensed his image for money.
Behind the scenes, Trump repeatedly went bankrupt and told Forbes he was 20 times richer than he actually was to get on their list. (That’d be like someone who makes $50k a year persuading people they were a millionaire.)
“I want a strong economy.”
In the three years prior to Trump, the unemployment rate dropped 2 percentage points. In Trump’s first three years it slowed, dropping only 1.2 percentage points. Then it skyrocketed to levels not seen since the Great Depression.
Even before Covid-19 hit, manufacturing under Trump plateaued, wages remained stagnant, GDP growth slowed, and the cost of rent shot up.
Trump constantly touted the stock market, which is a marker of how the rich are doing (since the richest 10% own 84% of all stocks), while the economy as a whole collapsed in the wake of Covid-19.
Also note that manufacturing jobs did not return under the Trump administration (2017–2021). Not even close:
“I’m tired of endless wars.”
I’ll admit, I’m a fan of some of Trump’s rhetoric on war. I don’t want new wars, and I don’t want more deaths by war.
The only problem is that Trump didn’t actually follow through with his anti-war rhetoric. I mean, yes, he didn’t start any new wars. But he bombed the Middle East more than his predecessors. He also increased war spending, and unlike Obama, who systematically decreased the number of troops overseas almost every year he was in office, Trump held the overall number steady.
In addition, Trump is needlessly loose and sporadic on this front. Regarding Iran, he said, “If you f*%# around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before.” Going rogue on stuff like this eroded our support with allies, which makes it harder for us to bring peace to the world.
“I want to protect religious liberty.”
If the US government were to build a oil pipeline through a sacred LDS space — through the Sacred Grove, for example — would you protest? If so, how did you feel about Trump renewing the Dakota pipeline? When Trump equated his travel ban with a Muslim ban a dozen times, did you denounce it as an affront on religious liberty or did you make excuses for Trump?
If you can’t see the Dakota pipeline or the Muslim ban as an attack on religious liberty, you might care more about power than religious liberty.
I saw many Latter-day Saints in 2020 saying that they were voting for Trump because of religious liberty. Now that it’s 2024, ask yourself: Did Biden take away your religious liberty in your actual lived experience? Maybe all the fear-mongering from politicians about religious liberty is a bit… phony?
Did Biden take away your religious liberty in your actual lived experience? Maybe all the fear-mongering from politicians about religious liberty is a bit… phony?
“I want better healthcare.”
Millions of Americans lost health insurance in the years after Trump took office, including 5.4 million since Covid-19 alone. In addition, premiums continued to climb year after year under Trump.
Trump talks about his “great” healthcare plan, but he never gives specifics (still! in 2024!). We should stop believing he has a plan at all. If he’s elected we’ll see a repeat of what we saw already under his administration: Fewer people insured, higher deductibles, more than 200,000 people dead from Covid-19. That is not great healthcare.
Trump talks about his “great” healthcare plan, but he never gives specifics. We should stop believing he has a plan.
Under Trump, we’ll continue to suffer from higher combined public and private spending than other rich countries.
“I’m nervous about the nation turning Communist.”
One of Trump’s tactics in every election is to scare Republicans into thinking that Democrats are going to enact Soviet-style Communism.
But even Bernie Sanders does not want Soviet-style Communism. Instead he wants something close to the Norway model of government. This means extending an optional form of public education to K-14 or K-16, implementing robust environmental legislation, and instating single-payer healthcare—policies that many Americans (and most young Americans) want.
None of that is anywhere close to Soviet-style Communism.
Kamala Harris is not a Communist, much less a Leftist. Leftists are disappointed in Harris (and Democrats generally) for constantly aligning with conservatives.
“I don’t want the United States to be the laughing stock of the world.”
If you want respect, don’t support Trump. Our allies don’t:
I just don’t like the Democrats.
Finally, you might say that you’re not voting for Trump so much as voting against Harris. On that point, I’ll concede. That’s somewhat valid. I’m not an ardent Harris supporter, primarily because I’m still in the dark about what she actually believes. It’s clear that she likes law and order since she was an attorney general (which should be a selling point to Republicans!), but beyond that she has changed her positions so many times over the years that it’s hard to know for me to know where she actually stands beyond generic center-left positions.
What’s more, a lot can and should be said about all the hypocrisy from the Democrats. Like you, I saw the Democrats hype the Mueller Report as the end of Donald Trump only to drop it afterwards when the revelations weren’t as explosive as they’d promised. I saw their theatrics about kids in cages at the border during Trump’s administration only to go quiet when many of the same things happened under Biden. I saw them lie about Biden’s mental acuity only to pivot when he lost the first debate against Trump and they couldn’t keep up the lie any longer. I saw the botched exit of Afghanistan, Hunter’s crony payments from Ukraine, and on and on.
It’s all tremendously disappointing.
We desperately need better politicians and better political parties.
And yet given everything I recounted above, I don’t believe that Harris or the Democrats in the same moral universe as Trump. From my perspective, it’s true that mainstream Democrats and Republicans aren’t taking America where we need to go, but they are essentially just a continuation of the same lackluster politics I’ve seen my whole life.
I don’t entirely agree with the sentiment, but I often think of the way the writer PJ O’Rourke put it in the 2016 election when he said of Hillary Clinton that “she’s wrong about absolutely everything, but she’s wrong within normal parameters.”
For all their many shortcomings, the centrist Republicans and Democrats, including Harris, are wrong within normal parameters. We could do much better. But we could also, as evidenced by Trump, do much worse.
So, what can you do?
First, stop making excuses for Donald Trump. Don’t say, “Yeah, he’s a bit rough around the edges, but…” Instead, be honest about who Trump actually is.
Second, consider your legacy. Young Latter-day Saints are looking at Christ in the New Testament and seeing the inverse qualities in Trump. All the LDS Trump support makes many of them—if not most of them—feel at odds with the religion.
Better to sit the election out than to vote for Trump.
