Keeping Fellowship with Trump Supporters?

[Anonymous]

I’m new here, though certainly not new to the struggle to stay in the church. The election results, especially the exit polling showing that a majority of our brothers and sisters voted for Donald Trump, just keep haunting me and drove me here. The Republican tendencies of the church have always been an issue for me, but I’ve never before been so profoundly disturbed by their implications. True, LDS support for Trump was lower than for Romney or Bush. True, many of our Republican brothers and sisters refused to vote for Trump because they abhorred his rhetoric and personal history.

But Trump enjoyed the support of a majority of professed Mormons.

How do I sit in sacrament meeting and Sunday School and priesthood with a people who support a man who, by any definition of the word, is vile? Even the Deseret News called his words evil. How do I worship in the House of the Lord with his supporters?

For years, I operated on the belief that my involvement in the church could exert a positive influence on my brothers and sisters. I cry as I write this, but I don’t think I can stomach it anymore. I covenanted to sustain the Kingdom of God on the Earth, not keep fellowship with a group of people who would vote en masse for a man whose policies and personal character violate every precept and principle on which the Kingdom stands.

I have a testimony of the Book of Mormon. I’ve just lost faith in the people of the church. Is that so wrong?

[Anonymous]

I guess my question is how have you gotten along with others in your ward who have differing opinions? Surely Trump is not the only difference in opinion you have with others.

I don’t know how to answer your question. Just like in the real world, I work and associate with people who have vastly different opinions on a huge variety of things. Some of those things I find vile and disgusting. That doesn’t mean I can’t associate with those people but it does mean that I probably won’t discuss those particular topics with them. I don’t have to agree with everybody around me and life would be pretty boring if everybody around me thought exactly as I did and we agreed on everything. At church, I already know I have differences in theological thought than many of my peers. I don’t particularly care if the person sitting next to me believes in young earth, or Jonah spent three days in fish’s belly, or that the Bible is all literal – he or she can believe whatever and I can believe whatever. Outside of the basic doctrines of the church and the gospel we don’t have to discuss our differences.

One other point. Just because the people in your ward seem to be predominately Republican does not mean they all voted for Trump. Many Mormons voted for Clinton and many others voted for McMullin. I was visiting another ward today, but the subject of the election did not come up (which was actually a bit surprising to me). My personal belief is that politics should be left out of church and I generally don’t engage in political discussion even with those with whom I think I agree. I will on occasion throw in a reminder that the church is made up of people of many different political ideologies and that the church is not officially part of any party.

[Moderator note: Changing hats from the above statement, we did have a discussion about this topic in the moderator only section of the board. We recognize that Mr. Trump is seen by many members as an undesirable president while others are Trump supporters and still others take a more neutral stance. While forum members are welcome to discuss how they might be dealing with others with differing political opinions, we don’t want the forum to turn into a anti-Trump (or anti-anyone else) place. Please limit comments to dealing with differences generally or if specific to US politics please keep it respectful or Mr. Trump, Mrs. Clinton, other candidates, and other board members.]

[Anonymous]

This is a huge problem for me also. Hearing the justifications of some members who voted for Trump reveals to me that we don’t hold the same values. I can understand disliking either party’s policies and favoring the other. I can understand that some feel strongly about SCOTUS. But for me, Trump’s tactics went too far. He was too divisive. He emboldened racists and xenophobes and sexists. He is probably a child rapist, and most certainly a sexual assaulter. He certainly isn’t an example to our children or to other nations. I also fear that he is so grossly underqualified that he puts us at risk in the global sphere. On this latter point, I hope that he will be smart and take advice and that we will all rally together to ensure our success as a nation. We must hold our leaders accountable. We must hold our citizens accountable for their acts of harassment against minorities and women.

Too many church members figured “not my problem” and were willing to put their own interests ahead of the vulnerable among us. The openly hostile sexism espoused by Trump and his ilk was sickening, but it’s also likely many Trump supporters are so suspicious of female authority that it didn’t even register for them.

[Anonymous]

I’m sorry you have to deal with this. I’m rather insulated because I live in a different country, but I do have to deal with the fact that so many of mine and my wife’s cousins voted for that wicked man.

I chalk it up to a combination of a bad voting system, partisanship, and cognitive dissonance.

Bad voting system. Trump won the Republican primaries because he ran against a slate of clones who split the vote. Now, the clones weren’t actually identical, they were just similar enough in most voters’ minds that they’d be just about as happy with any of the clones as any other. There are certainly two (Rubio and Cruz) who could have beaten Trump head-to-head. So we can blame the RNC’s nomination of Trump on our first-past-the-post voting system.

No voting system can be perfect (there are a few mathematical theorems that establish this), but most are engineered to avoid, or at least reduce, the vote-splitting problem. One bright spot in the election is that Maine, which has had a morally reprehensible governor the last few years because his opposition’s vote was split, has just voted via a ballot initiative to adopt ranked choice voting for all local and federal elections. I hope the rest of the states follow suit.

People do vote on other issues besides how well a candidate represents them. The main one in primary elections is perceived electability. We do this because of the party system, which is strong in the US because of… our first-past-the-post voting system.

Partisanship. My mother-in-law is convinced that Clinton is evil. I don’t know how she arrived at this idea – probably from listening to too much talk radio, seeing everything as a moral issue, and overemphasizing differences in beliefs about governing policy. But if she had been in a swing state and hadn’t been able to vote McMullin, she probably would have exploded.

Partisanship is common in any kind of bubble, liberal or conservative. I’ve been fortunate to live in the last few years in wards with an even mix of political ideologies – including my last Utah ward near BYU. People in those wards can’t believe the other side is evil without losing friends.

At any rate, a long history of partisanship in the Utah bubble put Utah Republicans in an unfortunate situation: they believed they had to choose the lesser of two actual evils. Considering that the president chooses supreme court justices (or some other pet issue), many believed that Trump was the lesser of two evils, and started leaning toward holding their noses and checking his box on election day.

Cognitive dissonance. My wife called out to me these two justifications for voting Trump, given by her cousins on Facebook.

“I trust that the Lord will make sure he doesn’t do too much harm.” This is completely unsupported by any scripture. Whenever did the Lord rein in a wicked king, who wasn’t even remotely chosen by the voice of the people?

“I think in spite of his personality flaws, he could make a great leader.” This is only marginally supported by scripture, and it’s a very slim hope. Of all the wicked kings in the Book of Mormon, for example, a grand total of one was a good leader. Morianton “did do justice unto the people, but not unto himself” (Ether 10:11). That’s it.

These aren’t well-reasoned statements made by people who are happy about their choices. They’re irrational statements made by people in the middle of adjusting their current beliefs to fit their future actions. It’s just good old cognitive dissonance.

I expect that, in many Utah Republicans, these irrational beliefs will fade and get replaced by disaffection and regret. At least, I really, really hope that’s true.

[Anonymous]

Well “keeping fellowship with Trump supporters” even applies to my family, not just my ward.

I usually try and steer the conversation away from the details or maybe even talk about “campaigning is one thing, governing is another” and talk about how the president isn’t the only person in the government – Obama didn’t ruin the country in 8 years.

I try to get them to laugh a bit about Trump and show them something like

[img]http://crooksandliars.com/files/imagecache/node_primary/primary_image/16/04/ability.jpg[/img]

[Anonymous]

Recognize that many people voted for the right wing ideology and not Trump the man. So in that respect, the divide is the same as what we experience in other elections. The people who voted for a Republican president were in an awkward position due to the presidential candidates the parties put in front of us as choices.

I personally had to consider the Democractic and Republican platforms on issues directly affecting my livelihood. Unfortunately, Trump belonged to the party that appeared to be the lesser of two impacts on my job as a private university teacher.

Also, had I voted for Hillary, I would have also been voting for a host of things I don’t believe in, and willfully damaging my family’s livelihood. Although I am a proponent of gender equality, gay rights, anti-racism, etcetera, Democratic economic policies bother me. And the way they shut down two major schools and left thousands of people out of work, and 10’s of thousands of students without a school to go to a month into the school year was disturbing. It was not an orderly exit.

I would have liked to have had a better candidate. A statesman, someone with balance, with integrity, and someone for whom who I wouldn’t feel embarrassed for electing. Someone who would garner respect on the world stage. But those choices were not available to me. And a vote of an independent candidate would not have influenced the outcome of the election. Abstaining would have simply left the choice up to others. What else could I do?

So, look at these members as people between a rock and a hard place when it came to voting. There was a choice between voting for the person, or the ideology (at least as much of as you can detect — we know how politicians sometimes break promises). Neither major candidates had the strength of character I think the nation wanted, so we had to look at other factors to influence our vote.

The day his presidency was announced, I actually had trouble working, and was upset — and I voted for him. I was upset about it, but what do you do when the parties give you a choice between two candidates who have faults you can’t accept?

I would have been upset if Hillary got in too…

Mitigating my choice was the fact that we have a house and a senate to balance his behavior, as well as impeachment processes for wrongdoing. Just because the house and senate are of the same party does not mean they will vote the party line. We already know a lot of Republicans don’t like Trump either…And when the house turns over in the next staggered election, I fully expect to see a wave of democratic representatives in power as backlash against Trump’s win. This will swing the pendulum back to democratic interests.

I have faith in the system our founding fathers put together to make sure the nation is not subject to extremity. This also mitigated the downside of my personal choice.

So, don’t view members as “supporting Trump” the man. They didn’t have much choice this election given the candidates — look at it as an ideological difference of opinion.

We normally don’t discuss politics on this site, so I hope I’m not breaking any rules, but this does impact how you feel being a member of the church — I get it.

[Anonymous]

Politics aside, a great many Mormons believe things I now find offensive, outrageous, or impossible. It’s an every Sunday question. I think we need to say more, not less. Say things aloud let them settle over us. “I didn’t vote for him/her… I don’t believe that…. I find that offensive…” But then: Can we still manage to shake hands, look each other in the eye, sign up to help, and stay loving.

[Anonymous]

Ann wrote:

Politics aside, a great many Mormons believe things I now find offensive, outrageous, or impossible.

Me too, so the answer to the opening question is an answer to the question — how do you survive ina community that has a lot of beliefs that run counter to your own, and perhaps that you even find offensive?

Here are suggestions…

1. Look at it as an athropologist would — as an objective encapsulation of a unique culture you are studying.

2. Recognize that many of your own values are offensive to the people there as well. So it cuts both ways. This helps breed mutual tolerance.

3. Avoid situations where you have to confront or endure intense doses of the beliefs that alienate you.

For example, last Sunday a High Councilor spoke. It was the most PAINFUL talk I’d witnessed in a while. Not because he was offensive, but because he was BORING. He would have a point he wanted to make, and he would surround it with all kinds of incidental, unimportant, distracting details — to the point I had no idea what his thesis was, let alone his general topic. I think he was unprepared, so he gave this rambling speech about who knows what.

I eventually got up and walked out. Not ostentatiously, but as if I had something important to do like take a phone call or go to the bathroom.

4. Don’t encourage conversation about topics that lead to the things you don’t believe.

5. Find additional communities outside church that share your values. This decreases the footprint of those annoying values in your life and increases the footprint of the values in which you share with others. But keep going to church — just make it a smaller part of your life so the objectionable stuff doesn’t bother you as much due to less exposure than previously.

[Anonymous]

People are different, which is one of our core beliefs here. In order to ask for respect and acceptance from people who are different, I have to grant them the same – even if I do not respect some of their views (and even if I abhor some of them) and even if I speak up and say so at times. That is part of life, and sharing church membership won’t change it.

I speak up (gently and with a smile, usually) whenever politics gets mentioned explicitly and ask that we not go there. I often add something like:

Quote:

Not everyone agrees politically, and I love that church is a place we can avoid that sort of contention.

I was concerned that someone might talk about politics in a testimony yesterday (conferences moved F&T mtg to the second week), since I live in a deeply red state, but nobody did.

[Anonymous]

You make good points, SD. I felt comfortable that I didn’t have to vote for the lesser of two evils because my state is very solidly blue. I voted for a third party candidate knowing my decision did not affect electoral college count for my state. I actually feel as though I voted my conscience and find peace in that because for once I wasn’t feeling as though I was voting for the lesser of evils. I am dissatisfied with the winner of the election, and I would have been dissatisfied had it been the other major candidate who won as well. Since Ronald Reagan I don’t have a great track record on voting for the winner anyway so being dissatisfied is par for the course for me. I certainly can see how others felt like they were between a rock and a hard place, and in fairness Utah did see itself as a swing state and it could have been under the right circumstances.

Your second post, SD, also hits the nail on the head. I am fully aware that most (not all) people around me at church are opposed to gay marriage. I am fully aware that most, including my SP and bishop, support the POX. I also know there are those who believe the Bible is very literal (including that the earth is only 6000 years old) and that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ literally physically visited Joseph Smith in the grove. This list could go on and on. I deal with that in the ways SD suggests, especially in recognizing that things like my views about gay marriage are just as repugnant to them as theirs are to me. And I avoid the subjects, which appears to be much easier than I would have thought a few years ago.

Like Ray, I expected to hear about the election yesterday at church but did not. I was pleasantly surprised.

[Anonymous]

I too was pleasantly surprised not to hear anything about politics at church but that’s because it was a Primary program, and I had to miss the 2nd and 3rd hours.

[Anonymous]

It’s too exhausting for me to keep score about who are Trump supporters and hold it against them in any way. It’s impossible to really know anyways. I’m certain most of my ward assumes I voted for Trump but they would be wrong. Besides you could make the argument that voters for 3rd party candidates really cast a vote for Trump and adults who didn’t vote also effectively cast a vote for Trump. Like I said, exhausting and pointless IMO.

[Anonymous]

It’s been a divisive election. The divisiveness existed before the election but I believe it has only intensified as a result of this election. It feels as though there is even less middle ground for people these days.

It can all come down to the ward you live in. I don’t know about other people and their wards but I was shocked that there were more than a few members in my area that didn’t vote for Trump. Typically the conservative candidates enjoy near unanimous support from members in my area.

I heard several people insinuating that you shouldn’t be able to get a temple recommend unless you voted for Trump. Thankfully none of them were in the position to give TR interviews but it was a common enough sentiment and it was expressed by a few people in other leadership callings that very well could be placed in a TR issuing calling sometime in the future. Personally I think that:

1) They talk big. They say those things from a place of great emotion but would fail to put their money where their mouths are.

2) They’re the vocal minority. Emphasis on the vocal.

3) There are policies in place against this sort of thing.

4) I think most people ignore them as someone that’s out in left field, even other staunch conservatives.

It’s still concerning to hear… and to hear it so often.

I think it helps to understand the perspective of people we disagree with. It may help to find out why people voted the way they did. I haven’t conducted a survey (and won’t) but based on social media (shudders) I’d say that the majority of the members that I know personally that voted for Trump did so because they are single issue voters, in this case a candidate’s professed stance on abortion. It may help relieve some tension to view the person sitting next to you in the pew on Sunday as a person that values all life (or however you want to view it) as opposed to someone that supported some of the more troubling things that Trump said during his campaign.

Maybe the single issue for people was gay marriage. I didn’t need an election in the US to help me understand where most active members fall on this issue, we’ve practically become a “one issue church” of late, we won’t shut up about it and move on with our lives. That’s still an issue for me no matter who won the election.

There’s the “fight the establishment” reason, which is something you might be able to get behind.

Some people will vote for anyone with an R next to their name. Some people will vote for anyone with a D next to their name. They don’t really stand by a candidate so much as they stand by their political party.

There are any number of reasons, I’ll leave it at the ones listed. It’s kind of like the assumptions people make when someone goes inactive. Some may label the inactive person as lazy, wanting to justify sin, offended, etc. and never bother to ask the person why they no longer attend church. They may be content with their explanation because it fits their current beliefs. It can be like that when we assume why someone voted for a candidate as well. We may make assumptions about why people vote the way they vote but our assumptions might follow our preconceived notions more than other people’s actual reasons.

All that said you’ll likely run up against people that voted for [insert candidate] for all the “wrong” reasons… putting wrong in quotes because different people view the same thing differently. I know a few people like that. I think it’s an exercise in finding common ground; like Ammon, Lamoni, and the great spirit. If we get hung up on making sure other people accept our beliefs in every particular we may miss out on ways we can find common ground and work together.

I know it’s tough. When it comes to people talking politics at church there’s most certainly a dominant voice that shouts above all others, at least in my experience, and that voice isn’t very tolerant of alternate opinions. People can mix/conflate religion with politics and the dominant voice sometimes likes to act like they speak with divinely sanctioned authority. E.g. you’re not just wrong, you’re against god.

This has been a divisive election… and forget people at church. Methinks there will be more lip biting than turkey biting at Thanksgiving dinner this year.

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

1. Look at it as an athropologist would — as an objective encapsulation of a unique culture you are studying.

For me the anthropologist angle wears off after a while. We’re a very predictable people. Wake me up when another monolith shows up. 😈 :angel:

SilentDawning wrote:

2. Recognize that many of your own values are offensive to the people there as well. So it cuts both ways. This helps breed mutual tolerance.

This. It’s been an interesting election (to say the least) but what strikes me is that both sides say the exact same things about the other side. Exact same. Everyone is working from their own perspective and to them that’s their truth. Of course the key difference is that one side enjoys a little more free reign than the other at church, but it’s an ultra-conservative religion. It’s to be expected.

SilentDawning wrote:

5. Find additional communities outside church that share your values. This decreases the footprint of those annoying values in your life and increases the footprint of the values in which you share with others. But keep going to church — just make it a smaller part of your life so the objectionable stuff doesn’t bother you as much due to less exposure than previously.

This goes along with your point #1. There are other cultures and communities to study. I’ve found additional meaning in getting out there and discovering new things.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

I know personally that voted for Trump did so because they are single issue voters, in this case a candidate’s professed stance on abortion. It may help relieve some tension to view the person sitting next to you in the pew on Sunday as a person that values all life (or however you want to view it) as opposed to someone that supported some of the more troubling things that Trump said during his campaign.

This makes sense. I was heavily influenced by each party’s stance on a single issue that is of great import to me and my family personally.

Quote:

Some people will vote for anyone with an R next to their name. Some people will vote for anyone with a D next to their name. They don’t really stand by a candidate so much as they stand by their political party.

This too, was my secondary reason. Regardless of the developed nation in which I’ve lived in the western hemisphere, liberally minded groups and conservative minded groups tend to believe the same basket of things. So you are faced with the conundrum of voting for a basket of things (in my case, economic in nature) that you don’t believe in, because the candidate who carries the basket you DO believe in has character issues??? Or do you vote for someone with weak character because they carry your basket of economic beliefs?

Tough call when there isn’t clear alignment between the person’s character, and the quiver of economic beliefs they carry.

Quote:

This has been a divisive election… and forget people at church. Methinks there will be more lip biting than turkey biting at Thanksgiving dinner this year.

😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆

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