“…You can’t trust your neighbor or even your closest relative.
If mom is a communist then you have to hand her over…”
— “The John Birch Society,” a 1962 song by Michael Brown, recorded by The Chad Mitchell Trio.
The camaraderie and mutual respect that have long been cornerstones of democracy in Utah and in the United States are slowly but surely being destroyed by candidates and activists who are sowing distrust among us.
Utahns are officially being encouraged to report each other through one or both of the online hotlines created by order of the Legislature. One to receive reports of people using the wrong public restroom and the other to accept rumors of any state or local public agency using prohibited words beginning with “D”, “E” or “I”.
That same Legislature has tasked state and local education officials with compiling lists of books that should be banned from schools across the state because they were declared offensive by a handful of school boards.
And too many candidates for public office don’t even wait for the votes to be cast before they start inventing reasons to distrust the entire electoral system that has served us so well for more than two centuries.
As Abraham Lincoln warned us, a house divided against itself cannot stand. A democracy where people do not trust their government, their civic institutions, or each other cannot survive.
Last summer’s Gallup poll showed another year of declining public trust in American institutions, especially the presidency, the courts and, last, Congress.
Those who promote faith-destroying messages may not have concocted some grand plot against American democracy. But the effect can be the same.
The objective, if it exists, is not for the people to trust those who are sowing all this discord. The goal is for us to trust no one at all, and the destroyers hope to be able, for a time, to rule the rubble.
No one is saying government doesn’t require checks, balances and oversight. He does it. That’s why we divide power between three branches of government and between federal, state and local jurisdictions, and we have a free press to keep an eye on it all.
As Ronald Reagan advised us, we must trust, but verify. (Russian: “doveryay, not proveryay.”) And our verification system, tested over decades, has largely held up.
Until now.
Utah State Auditor John Dougall did the bravely right thing by taking to social media to lampoon one of the websites he was tasked with creating. That of reporting violations of the new state law that limits transgender people to public bathrooms according to their gender assigned at birth.
He rightly resented being named chief of the state’s bathroom police and was unhappy that his staff was overwhelmed by 12,000 complaints, 11,995 of which were hoaxes or pranks.
That’s why it’s disappointing that Dougall supports the other snitch line his office is putting out. The one about people complaining that any state or local government office in Utah may still be trying to better open its doors to people from ethnic backgrounds that have historically been underrepresented.
Those efforts, once widely supported, were framed under the heading of “diversity, equality and inclusion.” A worthy goal for a nation trying to end 400 years of institutionalized racism.
Dougall rightly said that DEI started with good intentions and, as with any bureaucratic or academic trend, may have gone off the rails in some places. But the rush to ban public DEI efforts with little public input amounted to an Alice in Wonderland approach: verdict first, trial second.
Our Legislature has also taught us that any of our locally elected school boards cannot be trusted to decide for themselves what books should be in their classrooms or libraries.
A new law requires certain books to be removed from all Utah public schools if just three school districts, or two school districts and five charter schools, find them objectionable.
This is a horrible idea that can only fuel rancor between neighbors and educators, distracting everyone from real concerns, while a few over-empowered adults look through books, yellow highlighters in hand, looking for dirty words.
But the greatest threat to our democracy is the number of Utah Republican candidates who have already raised their bitter doubts by doubting, in advance, the official results of the upcoming election.
In recent debates, state Rep. Phil Lyman, who is running for governor, as well as a handful of challengers for Utah congressional seats, have passed up opportunities to confirm that they will accept the outcome of the upcoming election.
Unless, of course, they win.
The credit belongs to Gov. Spencer Cox, who is running for a second term, and Rep. John Curtis, who is running for the Senate. Both have made clear that they will not raise doubts about the outcome of the election, and Cox rightly expressed concern that Lyman’s unfounded accusations of tabulation “anomalies” will undermine faith in the system and discourage people. lets vote.
U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy, seeking re-election in Utah’s 2nd District, supports Donald Trump’s return to the White House. But unlike her primary rival, Colby Jenkins, she clearly does not believe in Trumpist theories about 2020 voter fraud and defends the conservative principle of supporting the states against any suggestion that Congress could override their election results.
Utah’s election system is well supervised and heavily policed. Insinuations and accusations that he is corrupt or fixed in any way are baseless.
Utah’s efficient, popular and secure vote-by-mail system greatly increases voter participation. Voters have more time to consider issues and candidates, and they have the ability to track their votes online. That’s why Utah’s process has been adequately defended by the lieutenant governors who administer it: current Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson, Cox before her, and Gary Herbert before him.
Democratic government requires trust. Trust requires supervision, but it is destroyed by unjustified suspicions and lies. Utahns should not let that happen.
Keynote USA
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