Blog 5

            As a lifelong member of the LDS Church and someone who has been aware of politics from a very young age (when I was about four or five, I asked my parents if Republicans were generally smarter than Democrats), I’ve always known intuitively that there is a clear LDS political identity. There is a majority bias in the Church in favor of Conservatism and the Republican Party. My goal here is to demonstrate this trend.

            First, however, it is necessary to understand the nature of a political identity and what qualifies as one. The book Comparative Politics, by David J. Samuels, defines political identity as “the ways that individuals categorize themselves and others, and how they understand the power relationships of domination and oppression that exist between groups” (p.149). For example, in 2008, I considered myself a Republican (I categorized myself), and I saw that Obama’s victory over McCain in the presidential election was a victory for “them” and a defeat for “us” (I had an understanding of a power relationship of domination and oppression). Thus, I had a Republican political identity. A repetition of this exercise today would tell me that I have a staunch non-partisan political identity, because I view political parties (“them”) as dominating the good of the nation in general (“us”) and do not self-identify with any clearly organized group.

            This exercise is relatively easy to carry out on a personal level. However, it is more challenging to apply to a culture or group. In the case of the LDS Church, 79% of the voters polled in 2012 were either Republican or Republican-leaning (The Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life). This is a very strong correlation. But is this enough to indicate the existence of a political identity, or merely a trend?

            I would argue that in and of itself, that is not sufficient evidence of a political identity. The real evidence comes from the culture’s view of its minority. According to Daniel Little, “the young Berber who aberrantly regards deference to his elders as a humiliating loss of self does not by himself reconstitute the elder-junior relation; instead he is a social misfit who has not correctly absorbed Berber social values and understandings" (Varieties of Social Explanation, p. 82). The fact that a dissenting opinion exists neither creates nor destroys a political identity. Instead, it is the majority’s response to that dissenting opinion. If it is seen as deviant, threatening, and perhaps dangerous, then the majority opinion qualifies as a political identity. Circumstantial evidence indicates that this is the case with the LDS Church’s attachment to conservatism and Republicanism. When an LDS friend of mine (as a social experiment, it turned out) stated on Facebook that she had decided to become a Democrat, people of all political stripes responded. However, only Republicans claimed that their opponent, the Democratic Party, was incompatible with Mormonism; Democrats and independents merely argued that all parties were acceptable. As a youth, I remember an acquaintance being utterly shocked that my friend and his entire family were LDS Democrats; I can only imagine how shocked he would have been had he known that my friend’s father would soon be our bishop. There is a widespread belief that liberalism and Mormonism are mutually exclusive; no such belief exists about conservatism and Mormonism. This indicates a clearly conservative political culture in the Church. The rule is defined by the exceptions.

            It is not clear to what extent this is shaped by primordialism as opposed to constructivism. In many cases, including my own case, this political identity exists by virtue of a tradition passed down from generation to generation. Since the body of LDS conservatives is so large, the tradition of conservatism is large in the following generation. However, this is clearly not always the case; to use the example of my own family, my parents are very conservative Republicans and raised my siblings and myself in that tradition; now, I am staunchly anti-partisan and my brother left on his mission a year ago as an avowed socialist. Constructivism also indicates a correlation between Mormonism and conservatism based on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage, which are essentially the only current political issues on which the Church has an official view. Thus most Church members, even self-identified Democrats, see themselves constrained by their religious beliefs to be somewhat socially conservative. I would argue that both primordialism and constructivism explain part of the origin of the LDS political identity, but neither offers a complete explanation.

Samuels, David J. 2013. Comparative Politics. New York: Pearson.

The Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life. Pew-Forum: Full Analysis on Political Party Identification in 2012 Election. http://features.pewforum.org/2012-political-party-identification-trends-more-republicans-gop/slide8.php (accessed October 12, 2012).

Little, Daniel. 1991. Varieties of Social Explanation: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Social Science. Boulder: Westview Press.