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Carburettor wrote:
DarkJedi wrote:
Benson was divisive politically, having been a member of Eisenhower’s cabinet (and unpopular with some) and having been a member of the ultra-conservative John Birch Society.
Thanks for the additional background; those things must surely carry weight with Americans, but I’d wager they are meaningless to the rest of the world. It’s beginning to feel like Donkey’s layers-of-an-onion analogy in Shrek. Outside the U.S., we have far fewer layers. I wonder if that’s a good thing or bad.
I bet most Americans haven’t even heard of the John Birch Society, much less know anything about what they are or who are members.
No issue with this post, and no risk of being banned. We address issues head-on, and I am not an enemy looking to discipline participants. 😀 Carburettor wrote:
My question isn’t about your politics, despite being focused on your political situation. It’s about Church members and their unwavering allegiances.I’d like to learn whether the political allegiance that many conservative members so openly demonstrate in favor of their chosen party will be swayed if that party’s potential leader ends up in prison. We can treat it hypothetically, of course, so it applies equally to both main parties.
It seems that church culture/application of church organization teachings has pushed away a fair amount of the more liberal thinking individuals (not all of course – just a general trend). A consequence of this is that conservative candidates get more airtime, and the theoretical scenario of the conservative candidate getting set to prison is more impactful for this target population. Also, individuals have had the last 4 years to determine how their personal ethics line up against the ethics of candidates and “what they will not tolerate in their candidates”. There has also been some cognitive dissonance between “electing ethical leaders” and “candidate ethics vs candidate party ethics”.
In my mind, the only questions are these:
a)
How many voters are there who will will not vote for that specific candidate because of the felony counts or some other specific boundary?I think that there would be around 2-8% of the active conservative voters in this category. It is not clear to me whether that would be enough to elect other candidates for the party in general, or whether these voters would defect to other parties, or just stay out of this election to sway the election itself.
b)
How likely is it that if the candidate is sent to jail, masses of individuals gather together to remove the candidate from prison?There are likely LDS affiliated individuals involved in at least potentially participating in that exercise. c) As for conversational sparring at home and at church activities – I honestly don’t know that it would change much except for a lot more expression of processing cognitive dissonance. Most of the more liberal thinkers have already stopped attending and/or attend on very specific terms – they are likely to have already decided to vote for one of the more liberal candidates and moved on.
Carburettor wrote:
Just to be clear, again, I have no interest the politics of any individual or party — and the rules of this forum are clear that this isn’t the place to discuss them. However, I see great relevance in the interplay between faith and politics of American Church leadership and members — and whether they are still likely to back a convicted felon (12th Article of Faith ‘n’ all). The ballot may be private, but there is no shortage of members who wear their political allegiance on their sleeve.The church organization was built in part on “group values” as part of the “what glues us together” in an “Us vs the World” mentality.The candidate in question is likely to have behaved in ways that do not match those values (marital fidelity, compliance with legal laws), and isn’t known for a “servant leader” leadership style. The candidate in question being found guilty by law of “being dishonest, untrue, not chaste, not benevolent, self-centered” and not necessarily knowing anything about Paul[and literally going against 1/2 of the 13th article of faith] is a lot of cognitive dissonance to drown out, chew Tums over, and potentially stock the nitroglycerin against. AmyJ wrote:
The candidate in question being found guilty by law of “being dishonest, untrue, not chaste, not benevolent, self-centered” and not necessarily knowing anything about Paul [and literally going against 1/2 of the 13th article of faith] is a lot of cognitive dissonance to drown out…
Speaking as an outsider, I find it bizarre that Church members would vociferously pledge their allegiance to any individual who personifies values that are seemingly in sharp contrast to their own. Let me grab some popcorn; this is gonna be good.Carburettor wrote:
AmyJ wrote:
The candidate in question being found guilty by law of “being dishonest, untrue, not chaste, not benevolent, self-centered” and not necessarily knowing anything about Paul [and literally going against 1/2 of the 13th article of faith] is a lot of cognitive dissonance to drown out…
Speaking as an outsider, I find it bizarre that Church members would vociferously pledge their allegiance to any individual who personifies values that are seemingly in sharp contrast to their own. Let me grab some popcorn; this is gonna be good.
And therein is what is at the heart of the cognitive dissonance faced by church members and other conservative Christians. I’m not really sure it has anything to do with whether or not he’s found guilty of any of the myriad crimes he’s charged with, he lost as an incumbent before most of this was really mainstream news (and before some of it even happened). I have no doubt he will win Utah (and its relative few electoral college votes) but he won’t win by huge margins. I generally consider myself a moderate conservative (fiscally conservative to moderate and socially moderate to liberal). This is the third presidential election where I can’t currently see myself voting for either main candidate because neither align with my ideologies. Alas, I live in a state where my vote really doesn’t matter anyway, my state will go to the current incumbent (although probably not my county or region). Thus it’s easy for me to vote for somebody else.
I am an election poll worker so I anticipate being very busy on election day, so no time for popcorn. And by the time I get home the networks will have already declared a winner (something else I take issue with). I don’t think out democracy is in danger, but I might hope the two party system is.
Carburettor wrote:
AmyJ wrote:
The candidate in question being found guilty by law of “being dishonest, untrue, not chaste, not benevolent, self-centered” and not necessarily knowing anything about Paul [and literally going against 1/2 of the 13th article of faith] is a lot of cognitive dissonance to drown out…
Speaking as an outsider, I find it bizarre that Church members would vociferously pledge their allegiance to any individual who personifies values that are seemingly in sharp contrast to their own. Let me grab some popcorn; this is gonna be good.
The allegiance is “being pledged” because for some of those individuals, the candidate is “one of us” and promises to further the interests of and prioritize those specific groups. The promise of power and change is tantalizing for a lot of people who fear losing power/authority and controlling change. It’s really a case of “where does an LDS person draw a personal ethical line” regarding the narrative that individual finds meaningful/informative about that candidate.
Again, voters are being asked to forecast “which candidate has their values at heart” and provides the future more in line with that individual’s personal values and/or what they think the country needs (conservatives in general to some degree want power/authority to remain in the same places and to revert changes). I think a small percentage of conservative voters will not be able to vote for the conservative candidate because the legal counts are “a line they cannot cross” from a standpoint of personal ethics/values. Whether this very small margin (the total remaining conservative voters minus the conservative voters who cannot vote for a felon) is enough to change the primary party election and/or the 2024 election is entirely up for speculation.
AmyJ wrote:
The allegiance is “being pledged” because for some of those individuals, the candidate is “one of us” and promises to further the interests of and prioritize those specific groups.
Thanks, Amy. I appreciate the explanation. To me, it seems to be an unfortunate, compromising position to occupy.Carburettor wrote:
AmyJ wrote:
The allegiance is “being pledged” because for some of those individuals, the candidate is “one of us” and promises to further the interests of and prioritize those specific groups.
Thanks, Amy. I appreciate the explanation. To me, it seems to be an unfortunate, compromising position to occupy.
For people I know, it absolutely is. They see their choices as “candidate A” who does not live or cherish values that are important to them from a personal level vs “candidate B” whom they perceive as an individual whose personal values are more in line with their personal values, but the group/party values are in conflict with group values as outlined by conservative (LDS religious culture especially focuses on that binary narrative).
As long as the implications that the more liberal group values are not shared by the individual, the easier it is for that individual to go with the more conservative candidate despite the gap in personal values between the candidate and the individual voter.
I vote for the ideology of the party, not for the people representing it. I have voted for the party whose general ideology fits mine for years, and this has been in spite of often not liking the leader of the party, or local congressman or senators. It’s the ideology, not the candidate that matters to me. SilentDawning wrote:
I vote for the ideology of the party, not for the people representing it. I have voted for the party whose general ideology fits mine for years, and this has been in spite of often not liking the leader of the party, or local congressman or senators. It’s the ideology, not the candidate that matters to me.
I think that the candidate’s personality and personal values matter because that individual bears the explicit title of “leader of the party” – so where the candidate goes, the party will go (or at least accept/tolerate and prioritize) to varying degrees. Part of the current situation is that the candidate has “gone where no candidate has gone before” in terms of many different choices and priorities – some of which have had legal ramifications (which may go against some of the personal ethical values and/or the “team player/law-abiding” values of voters). It looks to me that the more conservative party is fragmented a bit as individuals debate the degree that the candidate is the leader of the party, or just another pawn in the cogs of time preserving current situations from the changes the more liberal party may introduce if left to their own devices.
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At this juncture, we are showing signs of drifting into party-political territory — which is something even I can discern, despite being a foreigner who has no horse in the race.Please can we retreat from the precipice of political posturing that will otherwise get this thread locked. The forum rules are clear.
I have no particular interest in American political ideologies, but I do feel concern for the extent to which a significant number of Church members support (even tacitly) reprehensible behavior by public figures they help to elect.
Sure, it’s easy for me to hurl rocks from afar. I’m glad I don’t face such a dilemma.
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