LDS Democracy Newsletter - 09/30/2023

Welcome to the LDS Democracy Network’s Newsletter!

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Thanks to everyone who contributed to the conversations on social media about our logo! We felt this third issue called for an aesthetic upgrade.

General Conference is this weekend! Here are three quick reminders:

1) We’re not an official Church publication and we’re not speaking for the Church. This newsletter comes from our personal efforts to apply the values we’ve learned.

2) We’ve long felt uncomfortable about using sacred imagery, terms, or names when all we’re doing is providing a space to talk about our work as citizens in a democracy. That ick factor was magnified when “Latter-day Saints for Trump” made an unfortunate design choice back in 2020.

3) We do this work online because we’ve found it helpful in our own lives to converse with fellow Latter-day Saints about being more involved in our communities and we don’t believe that Sunday school should be a place for partisan politics.

Of good report

For the last three years, far-right political and media figures have pushed book bans, encouraging local citizens to challenge the inclusion of certain books in school curricula or libraries. The coming week is #BannedBooksWeek and we’re highlighting two people of faith who find that these crusades are contrary to their values.

Paul Raushenbush is an ordained Baptist minister and currently CEO of Interfaith Alliance. As he recently put it:

Sam Brunson, a Latter-day Saint and tax attorney, listed three reasons he finds book bans to be fundamentally contrary to who we are:

1. Book banners aren’t remembered well and we shouldn’t associate our faith with totalitarianism.

2. We believe moral agency is a crucial part of the human experience.

3. The “Mormon Creed” as published by William Smith in 1842: “To mind their own business, and let every body else, do likewise.”

Context matters

At midnight tonight, the government shuts down. This time is a little different because it’s not due to a lack of compromise between the parties but a refusal by House Republicans to abide by the compromise hashed out between them, House Democrats, Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats, and the White House back in May.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act, signed by President Biden on June 3, 2023, set the funding levels for this round of budgeting, raised the debt ceiling until January 2025, and included important protections for Medicare, Social Security, and Veterans Administration healthcare spending. This bill was very much a compromise: Democrats had to agree to new work requirements on nutrition programs for our poorest families and ending the pandemic-era pause on student loan payments. It passed with large, bipartisan majorities in the House and the Senate.

Now House Republicans are saying they won’t abide by the terms they agreed to just four months ago.

During a government shutdown, essential government employees (think members of the armed forces, TSA agents, air traffic controllers) have to work without pay while other federal employees are furloughed and federal contractors—including janitors—won’t receive back pay. Small Business Administration and Department of Agriculture loans can’t be processed. Critically, WIC—which serves over 7,000,000 mothers and small children, almost half of all babies born in the US, only has a few days of contingency funding. After that, grocery stores have to decline their purchases. It would also stall clinical trials at the NIH, reduce slots in HeadStart programs, end most environmental and workplace inspections, and delay infrastructure projects.

A week ago, House Republicans were saying they would keep funding the government if the Senate and White House agreed to an 8% cut—that’s 60,000 seniors kicked off Meals on Wheels, 4,000 fewer rail safety inspection days, 40,000 fewer teachers, aides, and key staff in schools across the country along with other impacts.

But the House GOP can’t even agree with each other on these cuts. Yesterday they moved forward on a bill with a whopping 30% cut in most programs, only to see far-right members vote against it.

So while there’s a temptation to grab popcorn and watch Speaker McCarthy try to wrangle the extreme right wing of his caucus—or some West Wing—we encourage you to remember that 1) this shutdown is entirely optional on the part of the House Republicans, and 2) it will hurt fellow Americans across the country.

Out of the best books

The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love The Free Market explores the history of market fundamentalism in the United States. One of the most interesting chapters in the book explores how business leaders set out to convert religious leaders to embrace the idea of market fundamentalism. Central to this effort was James W. Fifield, Jr. He was a minister in Los Angeles whose political beliefs aligned with a powerful group of American business leaders, the National Association of Manufacturers. Fifield built the Spiritual Mobilization movement, which promoted free market ideals to a religious audience, with support of philanthropists like J. Howard Pew.

The authors argue that American business made a deliberate effort to convince spiritual leaders to promote the Tripod of Freedom, a concept formulated by the National Association of Manufacturers in the 1930s. The Tripod of Freedom was a story in which free enterprise and the founding of America were indivisible, claiming that our country was founded on three principles that depended on each other: democracy, political freedom, and the free market. It simplified the history of the Constitution in favor of free market philosophy:

The Big Myth dives into efforts by American business to push back against government regulation. The central thesis, that unregulated capitalism is harmful to the overwhelming majority of participants, is presented with extensive historical context. The book looks at how American views on government involvement in the private sector shifted from policies born out of the Great Depression to the regulatory patchwork of today. Understanding how American Christians arrived at an understanding that the free market and freedom of religion are interdependent and a belief that attempts by policymakers to curb excesses of capitalism constitute a threat to religious freedom is crucial if we want to protect our society against the shortcomings of “the invisible hand.” If you have ever wondered, “Who made Adam Smith God?” The Big Myth does its best to provide an answer.

Ward newsletter

Brandon Sanderson is a writer, a world builder, and a Mormon. A profile of fantasy author Sanderson was published in Wired in March of this year. The piece asks the question, “why [is there] a hole the size of Utah where the man’s literary reputation should be?” Sanderson has published more than 30 books including 4 books he wrote “during moments of free time" which were published via a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign. With how large and popular Sanderson’s body of work is, why haven’t more people heard of him?

Sanderson can not, not write. The profile points out, “In the five months or so it has taken me to sit down and write this magazine story, which is 4,000 words long, Sanderson has published two books.” He has an impulse to constantly write things down; it’s called Graphomania. He loves building detailed worlds and telling stories. Many of his stories take place in Cosmere, a universe he has created full of planets and cultures with unique political and social structures.

Sanderson has built a loyal following and is using his influence to push for changes to how the audiobook industry pays royalties. In March of this year, Brandon Sanderson announced he would move some of his books off Audible due to the way Audible compensated indie and self-published authors. He believes Amazon controls most of the audiobook market and the lack of competition is bad for authors and creators. Another point of contention, Audible pays 25% royalties on audiobook sales, well below the 70% paid on other digital products like apps and games. It is not clear whether Sanderson’s influence will push Audible to change how it compensates creators.

Brandon Sanderson is not shy about how his faith influences his work. In the profile, Sanderson attempts to elaborate on the connection between his approach to writing and his faith. “As I build books, God builds people.” He writes stories to do more than entertain. He writes to inspire change. Sanderson’s literary reputation, his legacy, will be how his work helped independent authors learn to value their work more or how characters in his stories inspired readers to be better. And that legacy is already apparent whether or not people know his name.

Of our own free will

We’ve been thinking a lot about the First Presidency’s June letter on voting and civic participation, which reads in part:

There are benefits to partisan politics in a democracy. Presumably, no one will be as eager to call out hypocrisy, shortfalls, or potential corruption as one’s political opponents. As long as we have first-past-the-post voting for Congress and a majority rule for the Electoral College, the United States will have two major parties, each of which is made up of various factions. As Elder Robert S. Wood noted in April 2006, however, there are hazards when partisanship is taken to an extreme.

Two developments this week brought home to us the importance of not letting loyalty to a party or politician displace common sense. Or as the saying goes, sometimes we need to touch grass. [Ed., this isn’t a drug reference.]

The first is the indictment of longtime US Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ). The indictment is intense, including allegations of taking actual gold bars as bribes. In a typical political situation, one would expect Democrats to rally around their party member while Republicans demanded he resign.

Only the exact opposite has happened.

While we wouldn’t describe the support Republicans are giving him as “rallying,” Senator Romney is the only GOP Senator as of this writing to suggest Menendez consider resigning. But many of his fellow New Jersey Democrats—including Governor Phil Murphy—have done so, as have many Democrats in the US Senate, led off by Pennsylvania’s junior senator John Fetterman. This inversion can be explained, perhaps, by Donald Trump’s looming trial schedule.

Meanwhile, the Deseret News sponsored a poll asking Americans which politicians they consider to be a “person of faith” Among Republicans, 53% said that label should apply to ex-president Trump, with 13% of Democrats agreeing, while 63% of Democrats and 23% of Republicans said that they consider President Biden to be a “person of faith.” (We note that Senator Romney also enjoys a slight edge among Democrats, with 38% calling him a person of faith while 35% of Republicans agree.)

In the First Presidency’s letter, they asked us to pursue information about candidates and reminded us of the revealed standard in Doctrine and Covenants 98:10. We’ve lived too long and read too much to reflexively trust federal prosecutors, but we have serious questions about whether Senator Menendez has been honest, wise, or good in his dealings. We’ll leave you with this question:

What does it mean to you for a politician to be a “person of faith”? If we’re judging people “by their fruits,” for which fruits should we look? Send us a reply!

One more praiseworthy thing

BYU’s In Good Faith podcast features interviews with people of various religious backgrounds who are motivated by their faith or tradition to take action. We found ourselves particularly intrigued by a January 2023 episode on the spiritual dimensions of songs of protest.

Have a great Conference weekend!