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I try to keep in mind that politics is all opinion; therefore, a person disagreeing with me is not ‘wrong.’ And I know Trump supporters who are lovely people, and Clinton supporters who are judgmental and racist, and everything in between. I’m definitely having to take a break from the Bloggernacle until things calm down a little. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that I don’t REALLY belong in the heterodox Mormon community, since I am not a Democrat.
(And for what it’s worth – I voted for a candidate who had no chance of winning, so I was going to be disappointed no matter what.)
To piggy-back on what nibbler and joni have said, let me add my thoughts: If we are to take anything away from our Christian upbringing then we need to try to be the kind of people we demand that others be. To me, the single most important factor is understanding other people on their terms. Everyone who voted in this past election did so from not only a perspective of their life experiences, but also based on priorities and trade-offs. I know and have talked to faithful and active members of the Church who voted for Trump, Hillary, and Johnson.
I’ll use myself as an example. I could not vote for Trump. I gave him a shot, but I could not do it. My reasons are my own. But I also could not vote for Hillary. I gave her a shot, but I could not do it. My reasons are my own. I mean no disrespect to anyone else, but from my own perspective, that’s what I came to, just like how others came to different conclusions. So, in an election that left me unable to support either of the candidates, I had a choice. I could pass on voting. I could write in a candidate. I could write “no vote” in the line, I could leave that section of the ballot empty, or I could vote for someone else on the ballot. I wound up doing the latter. I didn’t spend a lot of time on that candidate. I knew my selection would not be the winner. My entire purpose was as a protest. Now, Trump is the president-elect. Do I wish I had voted for Hillary? No. Am I glad Trump is the winner? No. I was going to be disappointed no matter which of the two won.
But now we get to the heart of the matter. I am in a tiny minority of voters in this country. 95% of all voters voted either for Hillary or for Trump. Should I “keep fellowship” with them? Of course. But how can I avoid losing faith in the people of this country?
jacobnagle, you said that a “majority” of LDS people voted for Trump. OK. Let’s take a closer look. In the state of Utah, which I recognize is not 100% LDS, but certainly is a decent barometer of LDS influence, Trump garnered 46.8% of the Vote. Romney had gotten 72.8% in 2012 and McCain 62.6% in 2008. In 2016, Hillary had 27.8%, besting Pres Obama’s 24.8% four years ago. But this year, McMullen got a whopping 21.0% in Utah, by a mile, the most any state voted for anyone not named Donald or Hillary. Idaho, parenthetically, went more for McMullen than any third party candidate achieved in any state with the exception of McMullen in Utah and Gary Johnson in NM. I didn’t vote for McMullen either, BTW, so I have no vested interest in his performance. Finally, let me point out that Utah had the lowest percentage of votes for Trump of any state that Trump won. In fact, Trump received a higher percentage of the vote in New Hampshire; a state that he lost. So, I think the basic premise that LDS people are big Trump supporters is incorrect.
Now, let’s look at the “black vote”. 88% of black voters voted for Hillary. In fact, the single largest ‘block’ of any demographic that went for one candidate was black women, who voted 94% for Hillary, obliterating the 61% of mormons who voted for Trump. But I didn’t vote for Hillary, and would have been just as disappointed if she were president. So, let me ask you the same question that started this thread. Should I “keep fellowship” with black women even though they voted for a candidate I could not have?
To me, it comes down to understanding others on their terms. People have a myriad of reasons for why they ultimately vote for one candidate over another. They are right and have the right to do so. You might find that people who voted for Trump, don’t necessarily think of themselves as “Trump Supporters”, but perhaps they feel they have taken too many punches to keep voting for the status quo. My advice is to think about why someone might have voted for a candidate or a ballot initiative that you opposed, but instead of assuming they are hateful, bigoted, uneducated, or anti-american, recognize that most of them have perfectly valid reasons for their priorities and trade-offs. This is the basis for how to find peace in this life… and that is much more important that politics.
Thank you for the perspectives everyone. They really do help me to look at the election in a different light and find a measure of peace. From where I sit, I am more worried about the disappointment Trump is going to create. Those who voted for him did so in deep belief of who he would be. He hasn’t even been sworn in, and he is a different man. Different promises. Different. This may hurt worse than having a woman President who you knew the life history about. http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/here-are-new-policy-stances-donald-trump-has-taken-election-n684946 ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/here-are-new-policy-stances-donald-trump-has-taken-election-n684946 mom3 wrote:From where I sit, I am more worried about the disappointment Trump is going to create. Those who voted for him did so in deep belief of who he would be. He hasn’t even been sworn in, and he is a different man. Different promises. Different. This may hurt worse than having a woman President who you knew the life history about.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/here-are-new-policy-stances-donald-trump-has-taken-election-n684946 ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/here-are-new-policy-stances-donald-trump-has-taken-election-n684946 For some reason, this doesn’t bother me (yet). I read over the democratic platform and it had PRE-DECISIONAL written all over it in a repetitive Watermark. I took that to mean “we can do whatever we want when we get into power”.
Most politicians do that anyway…although they tend to be acting from a few ideological premises…they tend to do what they please after they take the official seat.
Plus, it’s the nature of democracy for inexperienced politicians to promise one thing in the cradle of pre-election ignorance, only to find it’s harder than they thought when they got into office. For example, Obama was going to close Guantanamo Bay, but I don’t think he did it.
I expect post-election flip flops.
I think Obama was right when he said Trump is a pragmatist. I think he will do whatever he has to in order to get the job done. And I think he was right to not prosecute Hillary, to leave the gay marriage law in place (he Dems are upset enough as it is), be realistic about what kind of a wall he can put up, etcetera.
We had one politician in Canada who made the mistake of saying “The time before an election is not the time to talk about serious issues”. It lost her the election, but sadly, it’s the nature of democracy to say what is popular to get into power, and then deal with the realities post-election. I don’t like that, and wouldn’t subscribe to it myself, but it’s the nature of the beast, sadly.
But back to fellowship at church. I think being unorthodox means being open minded about stuff. I struggle with being open-minded toward TBM attitudes sometimes, but I think accepting what other people believe, even when you don’t agree with it, is part of freedom of religion, even within the church….let them believe how they wish…
One thing this election has made evident to me is that these political differences also connote fundamentally different values. In some cases, it’s merely how we prioritize things. In other cases, it’s literally that they don’t care about things that I care a lot about . . . and vice-versa. Those value differences are where judgment creeps in. I have actually lost respect for some people over this. It’s not universally been true. It depends on their reasons for the views they hold. SD – I too am not surprised. No politician gets to keep any of their campaign promises. What I intended was the need to keep room for his supporters as those promises go unfulfilled. The passion’s that were raised during this election season were higher than most. Supporters want Hillary prosecuted, Walls built, People’s deported. It’s going to hurt when those things don’t happen. In fellowship it might help if we kept that awareness. In an odd way they will experience a faith crisis.
In my ward there were plenty of Hillary supporters. They too are hurting. We who know deep pain have an upper hand, should we chose to take it. I see it as an opportunity.
In truth, I’ll probably screw it up a bunch though as I practice “Trying to be like Jesus”.
I think there is lots of good advice in this thread so I won’t say too much. I just have to say I think we all need to chill and give it some time and see what happens. I’ve heard some absolutely ridiculous things over the last couple weeks from liberal friends who act like the world is going to end since trump was elected. It’s not! If you listened to the far right 8 years ago you’d have heard some of the same things when obama got elected. People literally thought the US wasn’t going to last 4 years while obama was in office yet somehow it managed to survive 8 and it’s still plugging along.
I’m probably considered far right by many on this board when it comes to certain topics yet I can still be open minded enough to have issues with the way the church handles things, from LGBT issues, a racist history, gender inequalities, etc. And I can still get along with people who disagree with me.
I find most people are either single issue voters or are truly very uninformed when it comes to voting, even though they feel informed, because their head is full of misinformation spread by the media and internet. We just need to remember that people did what they thought was right, even if it goes against what you believe to be right. If we just continue to get more divisive with every election I don’t see how things are ever going to get better.
unsure wrote:I just have to say I think we all need to chill and give it some time and see what happens. I’ve heard some absolutely ridiculous things over the last couple weeks from liberal friends who act like the world is going to end since trump was elected. It’s not! If you listened to the far right 8 years ago you’d have heard some of the same things when obama got elected. People literally thought the US wasn’t going to last 4 years while obama was in office yet somehow it managed to survive 8 and it’s still plugging along.
:thumbup: Exactly.I’ll just give an example. My wife’s boss is dyed-in-the-wool liberal. The day after the election she went into her office, left the lights off, and pulled the blinds. She wore black. For the office Christmas party she has always footed the bill for catering the main dish and everybody else brought a dish to pass. It cost her a few hundred dollars to do that, it was very nice of her. The morning of the day after the election she sent an email to everyone saying “Santa is dead” and informing them she would not be paying for catering this year because she needed the as her retirement accounts were about to tank. First of all, Trump is a business man and a republican, why the heck wouldn’t businesses think his presidency would be anything but great for them? However, she had listened to the news (you may recall “futures” were way down election night). Well, look what’s happened folks. The Dow has only had a couple down days since the election, is in record territory, and it is projected to continue to climb. My wife’s boss’s retirement accounts are probably in better shape than they have been in a long time (unless they are really poorly managed).
So I agree. Give it a chance and let’s see what happens. One thing I know, the sun will come up tomorrow and it will come up January 21. (And I don’t have faith the sun will come up despite the asinine discussion we had in priesthood last week- apples and oranges, but that’s a whole other topic.)
Some of my very liberal friends were asking me if it was really any different from 8 years ago when Bush was in. IMO, it’s COMPLETELY different. For one thing, I voted for Bush (I’m independent–I also voted for Obama). Bush was at least a qualified, experienced executive politician from a political family (I quite liked H.W., thousand points of light and all). He couldn’t pronounce “nuclear” which really bugged me, but that’s about it. He would never in a million years have used racism to win and he also wasn’t a sexual assaulter. This was also before the real rise of the tea party, which I cannot abide. So, yes, to me, this is totally different. But one thing I can say for Trump–if this nationalist / white supremacy-friendly win doesn’t bring us to our knees, then at least we can say there are enough checks and balances for our system to withstand any internal threat.
I felt like the Church was getting political by telling people to vote for someone that holds their same values. Both Hilary and Trump do not hold the ideals of the LDS faith. I was mad at the Church about this. I was also mad that the Church wants us to take in refugees unconditionally and give money to them. This was a general conference talk. I’m sorry America cannot save the world, and even though President Uchtdorf was a refugee, he had similar cultural and religious beliefs to Americans. I think the Church is crossing it’s political neutrality and may have its tax exempt status taken away for this if it keeps it up. jamison wrote:I felt like the Church was getting political by telling people to vote for someone that holds their same values. Both Hilary and Trump do not hold the ideals of the LDS faith. I was mad at the Church about this. I was also mad that the Church wants us to take in refugees unconditionally and give money to them. This was a general conference talk. I’m sorry America cannot save the world, and even though President Uchtdorf was a refugee, he had similar cultural and religious beliefs to Americans. I think the Church is crossing it’s political neutrality and may have its tax exempt status taken away for this if it keeps it up.
I think the church has always told us to vote our consciences, at least since I have been a member (approaching 40 years). The church claims political party neutrality, and while I don’t think most members recognize it I think they really do work at it. Part of that neutrality does have to do with tax exempt status – but I think the top leadership and our lawyers are far smarter than to do anything that would jeopardize that, especially in comparison to what some other churches have done. I don’t think the church is in danger of losing tax exempt status despite the Trump fear mongers.
Like Hawkgrrrl I consider myself an independent. I did not vote for either Trump or Clinton because neither hold my values (not that any particular candidate, including Romney, ever does but these two were worse). I voted for a third party candidate because my vote in my state didn’t matter and this candidate was far closer to my values than either Clinton or Trump. I did vote against Obama both times, although I was not thrilled with McCain (and more especially Palin) either. I voted for the second Bush twice, following having voted for Bill Clinton both times. I voted against the first Bush, voted for Reagan both times and would have voted for Carter had I been eligible to vote then (missed it by that much). I still think he gets a bum rap.
I actually think the refugee thing is a major thing for the church and republican party at the moment. And I don’t think it’s limited to refugees, I think undocumented immigrants are at least as big a difference of opinion between the church and the republicans. And I don’t think the Trump win (or retaining both houses of Congress) is a mandate for the party – there’s still a big divide, and the divide on the other side grew as well. I think both parties need to sit down and take a good hard look at what their core beliefs are. I think the church’s core belief on refugees and undocumented immigrants is “love your neighbor.” I think Christ wouldn’t care at all about who they are or why they’re here or not here. He is the Bread of Life, the Living Water, and the Light of the World. He would not turn them away, and neither should we. I think the church has it right and will not bend to the majority political party (in government or in membership) on the issue. I do agree that it’s not the USA’s job to save the world though.
Quote:I was also mad that the Church wants us to take in refugees unconditionally and give money to them. This was a general conference talk. I’m sorry America cannot save the world, and even though President Uchtdorf was a refugee, he had similar cultural and religious beliefs to Americans.
One of the things I liked about the refugee talk was that it was from a Brit. Not an American. It also didn’t come from a top GA. And yet it hit a lot of hearts. As Elder Kearon mentioned “We were once the refugee’s”. To me that is important. I belong to a once unwanted group. A group whose story was stretched to cause great strife among people who should have been neighbors.
I too worry about the refugee situation that France is facing. I never got the feeling the church said “The U.S. needs to solve this problem.” Only to remember, to put politics aside and help if you can. Nothing more. No one is checking on you if you do. It’s not required for full or active membership. It’s an option. If it’s not your cup of tea, let it go. Move on. Focus on your matters. The refugee crisis will abate and be a moment in time.
@ Darkjedi. I also think it was a deserved slap in the face to Mr. Romney that Trump got the white blue collar vote. The blue collar man is that man that the Church struggles with even attracting. The Church is seen as a snobby organization thanks to Mr. Romney and Trump totally took the states that Romney could not convert into wins and he did so because he appealed to blue collar folks. Trump made Romney look so pathetic. jacobnagle wrote:How do I worship in the House of the Lord with his supporters?
Many, many of us (at least in my area) felt the
exact. same. way. each time Obama was elected. 
We were crushed and we felt betrayed.
It was hard to see their gloating faces when they walked into church. It was hard to hear them speak over the pulpit.
We were disgusted.
:sick:
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