Harry Reid For President

Payden McRoberts

PL SCI 150

Professor Hawkins

October 10, 2012

Blog 5: Political Identity

            It’s clear that Latter-day Saints have a distinct identity in the world. As members of a religious group that departs from mainstream Christianity, members of the LDS church are likely to have their identity shaped by their beliefs. The beliefs of LDS members are generally strongly held and have a great effect on the lifestyle of the members, causing them to lay aside other priorities to follow the dictates of the LDS identity. The discerning political scientist has to ask whether or not this powerfully held identity extends to the political sphere as well as the social sphere. This blog post attempts to answer that question by looking at the possibility of an LDS political identity through the lens of primordialism and constructivism, to determine which best explains the political identity of Latter-day Saints, if it exists at all.

            According to Professor Kirk Hawkins of Brigham Young University, identity can be defined as the way that individuals categorize themselves, with a resulting feeling of close emotional association (Hawkins 2012). What this means is that to have a cultural identity, a person has to not only be a member of a particular organization, but feel strongly enough about it to place it in priority over other associations. A political identity, then, is an identity that shapes one’s political actions above all else. So, the question is if membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints an identity that overrides other identities in the internal struggle for political loyalty in the United States.

            This is a fascinating question, because it could say a lot about the way that LDS members vote. The upcoming election has sparked controversy about this very subject. Is a “good” Latter-day Saint duty-bound to vote Republican, especially now that a member of the church is running on the Republican ticket? Or are LDS political identities based on more than their religion? Interestingly, the election has brought many LDS Democrats out of the woodwork, encouraging them to show that they will not vote for presidential hopeful Mitt Romney simply because they share religions.

            It is difficult to tell if the predominantly Republican majority in the LDS Church is caused by the church itself or by other, outside factors, such as geography. In an article released by NPR early this past September, Liz Halloran reported on a national meeting of Mormon Democrats. Attended by such figures as Harry Reid, majority leader of the Senate, and Scott Howell, who will attempt to be elected as Utah’s first Democratic Senator since 1970, the gathering claimed that there are one million Democratic Mormons living in the United States (Halloran 2012). This figure comes from the Pew Forum survey stating that 17 percent of Latter-day Saints are Democrats. There is certainly a perception in the LDS Church that “good Mormons” identify themselves as Republican. This is a perception, said Reid, that he has been trying to change for 30 years (Halloran 2012).

            However, this political identity that LDS members hold is not static. Reid, Howell, and others, are the head of a growing group that is changing that identity. Although, according to a survey produced by Quin Monson for Utah Data Points, 42 percent of Utah Democrats view Mitt Romney favorably, this is likely attributable to their religious connection with the presidential candidate, and not an indication of their intent to vote for him (Monson 2012). This is strong evidence for constructivism, a cultural identity theory that states that identities tend to change, rather than remain fixed from early childhood. Said David J. Samuels, a proponent of constructivism, “Because people can at least partly pick and choose aspects of their identity and can attribute political importance to their identity in different ways, constructivism asks us to consider what interests individuals might have in attaching political salience to a particular form of identity” (Samuels 2013, 158).

What the first gathering of the Mormon Democrats is telling us is that Samuels is right, at least about the LDS political identity—it is changeable. I for one would be very interested to see what would happen to that identity if a Mormon Democrat ran for president.

           

           

REFERENCES

Halloran, Liz. 2012. Mormon Democrats battling Romney—And what would be church history. National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/09/04/160570257/mormon-democrats-battling-romney-and-what-would-be-church history (accessed October 11, 2012).

Hawkins, Kirk. 2012. Identity and political identity. Lecture, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT. October 10.

Monson, Quin. 2012. Do LDS Dems like Mitt Romney? Utah Data Points. www.utahdatapoints.com (accessed October 11, 2012).

Samuels, David J. 2013. Comparative Politics. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.