“I looked up Young’s challenger
He’s a Mormon—looks and smells like a Mormon from rural Idaho from his answers on Ballotpedia.”
Yeah, “Mormon” is extremely often a red flag. And in as state like Utah or Idaho and perhaps isolated places in other states such as Arizona, Nevada and Wyoming, being a Mormon is very important to the electorate. Truly conservative Mormon politicians are rare things.
If the conservative was not a Mormon and lost here, I think we have our explanation. Mormons will always vote for their own kind over someone who isn’t part of the tribe, and as a group they greatly prefer someone who is NOT conservative over someone who is.
Mormons will always vote for their own kind over someone who isn’t part of the tribe, and as a group they greatly prefer someone who is NOT conservative over someone who is.
As a Catholic, I kind-of-sort-of resemble that statement. The same can be said of Jews-—it’s just that with Catholics and Jews there is diversity within the confession that at times can be a more defining trait.
While it was only in the 80’s that the Catholics and Jews collectively reached the three-seat benchmark on the Supreme court in what appeared to be a permanent way, since then, depending on how you count things, they at times have has a 9-0 majority——but the Catholics fall into rather distinctive camps. Jews can as well, but I don’t know if there ever has been a conservative Jewish justice.
Mormons are a bit more tribal than generic Catholics (if one has an Italian Catholic neighborhood one has a double-bond that may tolerate a sort of community justice that Mormons endorse only in theory. But “who am I to judge,” to quote one prominent Catholic of Italian descent).
I don’t see how one can take religion seriously (I would prefer that my politicians did), be capable of intelligently comprehending complex things (another desirable trait in a politician), have a fair idea about diverse important subjects in the world and history (another desirable trait, and one that is necessary if one is to stick to principles in the long run), and be a Mormon. I can only imagine being three of these four things simultaneously, at most.