Rarely does Bishop Bill wade into current events or politics. (Even rarer is him using the 3rd person when speaking of himself.) He usually leaves that to the more articulate bloggers at Wheat & Tares. But today will be different.
It has been a rough couple of weeks for both former President Trump and President Nelson. Since Pres Nelson is Prophet, Seer, Revelator and CEO of the Church, the buck stops with him, and I’ll use him as the proxy for the “Church”, BYU, the Church PR department, and Kriton McConkie.
There is an old adage in law that says:
If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell
I have seen both Trump and Nelson use this to varying degrees of effectiveness these past weeks. Trump tried both arguing the law and the facts and that didn’t work, so now he has resorted to pounding the table, which seems to be his fallback position for just about any time he gets caught doing something wrong.
Pres Nelson started out with the Arizona child molestation case by issuing a press release that argued the law, since the facts where against him, and were really revolting. He said that the Church followed the law, so did nothing wrong. That fell apart when it was revealed that the Arizona law allowed for the bishop to call authorities without repercussions. So now with the law against them, the PR department issued another release that argued the facts, laying out a timeline with facts they said showed the AP article got it wrong.
The next step will be pounding the table, which has already started with defenders of the faith. There will be references made to religious freedom and that the LDS church is being picked on, etc.
While I have no solution for ex-President Trump, I do have some ideas for Pres Nelson that would get some good press. At the next General Conference, have Pres Nelson get up and devote a whole talk to the Arizona debacle. First he will admit that Kriton McConkie were wrong in the advice they gave the Arizona Bishops, and that they have been fired and will no longer represent the church’s legal interests. (BRM rolls in his grave at this point). He then says that all Bishops will be instructed to report abuse received during confessional when allowed by law (there are a few states and countries that prohibit it). He further states that all new bishops will go through mandatory training on their local laws, and will be given local social services contact information for helping the victims.
Lastly, after looking at Pres Oaks and giving that “OK, here it goes” look to him, he says he is sorry for the harm that has befallen children, both in the Arizona case and elsewhere due to the Church’s former reporting guidelines.
Then, we switches gears and says the BYU woman’s volleyball coach has been fired, and the rest of the year’s schedule has been canceled.
OK, all of the above is very simplistic and fanciful thinking of very complex situations and now you know why I stay away from current events!
Wheat & Tares 
Trump is ethically and psychologically unqualified for office, but the MAGA crowd doesn’t care.
Biden is physically and mentally unqualified for office, but the LEFT doesn’t care.
Nelson IS qualified for his office by virtue of outliving everyone else.
That’ the system, folks.
I think the comparison is a solid one. To me, the most obvious similarity is that they’ve both tried to convert stodgy old organizations (the Republican Party and the LDS Church) into cults of personality. They’re both charismatic leaders, and they’ve thrown out principles the organization used to hold to in favor of “I’m the leader, so you do what I say.”
Republicans used to stand for different kinds of solutions from Democrats, but under Trump’s influence, they’ve become the party that rushes always to pretend a problem doesn’t exist (global warming? never heard of it) rather than propose market-based solutions, like some Republicans of the past might have. Similarly, Mormons have moved from having any guiding principles (“Do what is right, let the consequence follow”) to valuing institutional loyalty above anything. Confidentiality, for example, as has been discussed a bunch on recent posts, is either good (if it keeps the Church’s failures out of the public eye) or bad (if it would keep BYU professors from being sufficiently spied on). There’s no general principle.
@ziff, what’s interesting is I don’t think EITHER of them is charismatic at all. IMO are both quite transparently narcissists, not good speakers, and not trustworthy. But many don’t seem to feel that way.
Dream, dream, dream………..we all have dreams of the potential of the LDS church……but they will never happen. The church is not what we were taught and believed.
The Q15 have NO honor or integrity, hence the exodus of the membership.
Religious freedom to let kids get molested and emotionally destroyed? Are followers of Christ actually going to argue this?
What boggles my mind about the Arizona child molestation case is how the church has dug in its heels and said that it bears no fault, but will not own up to the fact that the bishop never referred the confession to law enforcement which he should have done upon first confession of the incident. Your comparison is quite right. Trump and the church leaders just pound the table and cry victim. Unfortunately it is an effective strategy in the court of public opinion. In the courtroom, not so much. But Nelson isn’t facing direct courtroom battles. Trump could very well soon be facing them. Let’s hope he does and that justice finally prevails against him.
@Ziff
Good observations, comments. Though … global warming has been warned against for many years prior to Trump. Republicans of the past DID NOT propose market-based solutions. They called it a hoax and made fun of its predictors. Even now, only a handful are acknowledging it, and speaking up. Solutions would, after all, require actions that would eat into corporate record profits.
On a brighter note, a lot of Utah (and national) Republicans are looking for ways to save the Great Salt Lake. Miraculously, it is a bipartisan effort.
Heather Olmstead should not be fired. The women’s volleyball season should not be cancelled.
Nelson should do/say a lot of things in his conference talk next month–including many of the suggestions above–but I would be willing to bet vital parts of my anatomy that he will not.
I agree that Heather Olmstead shouldn’t be fired. BYU police announced that they couldn’t find evidence of a racial slur uttered at the game. When I first read the story I thought what had happened was that a spectator audibly yelled out a racial slur at Rachel Richardson multiple times and that this act was audible and obvious to other spectators, who just didn’t care enough to do anything. After reading the police report, my theory is that the person sneakily called Richardson a racial slur multiple times in cahoots with a few other spectators around him, but in a way that wasn’t apparent to other spectators or the BYU coach. Richardson knows what she heard and so did her teammates. This person further approached Richardson after the game and told her to “watch her back,” and the person in question even admitted to approaching her after the game near the bus, but claimed he didn’t say what Richardson said he did. Richardson and her teammates were able to pick this person out of the crowd. The Duke team had the police come guard them during the game. They reported the spectator to BYU. BYU was able to identify exactly who it was and ban him from future BYU events. I have no doubt that the incident happened. Richardson’s dad said that she called him on the phone in tears after the incident. (Contrary to the fantasies of rabid anti-antiracists, racism isn’t being made up all the time, and they’re frothing at the mouth over the BYU police report and reading more into it what isn’t there, and I suspect that some of them will come around and hyperventilate in the comments to this post). But the incident was more subtle than the impressions given off by initial news reports and unable to be easily detected in police investigation. The police investigation may also be not too in-depth. Also the BYU police department could believably contain racism deniers who have a personal interest in trying to downplay claims of racism. That being the case, I think BYU generally made the right calls and that neither the BYU volleyball coach, nor the culture, should indicted (metaphorically) over the incident. Ban the spectator for life, sure. Move the game? Yes. Get rid of the student section? Yes. But should South Carolina cancel a game over the incident? No.
Both appear to be power hungry, unable to accept advice/criticism, require others to be sycophants.
If RMN can operate this way it is irrelavent, and makes him irrelavent, except that church members accepting this management style, see less of a problem with trump.
If trump were to get back into power he would not be benovelent dictator, but a very dangerous one.
“Then, we switches gears and says the BYU woman’s volleyball coach has been fired, and the rest of the year’s schedule has been canceled.”
What? Why?
You’ve devalued your entire post by including this. No longer does the truth matter, just optics, and the appearance of “doing something”.
@Sasso, these days many corporations have realized climate change is a risk and are actively working to mitigate that risk, but Republicans are fighting those corporations. For example Texas Republicans passed a law barring the state from doing business with companies Texas feels discriminate against fossil fuel industries. Recent reporting (I heard it on NPR) indicates this legislation cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars a year. And still, the state’s 2022 platform pushes against climate change science. smh
Yes Mike S you are right. Thus the reason it will be a year or so before Bishop Bill tries a post like this again!
@MTodd – thanks for pointing out that not all corporations use the same playbook, or have the same values. Fortunately, there are still many that value their employees’ contributions no matter their race, orientation, or gender. Some champion human rights at many levels.
Sadly, there are a lot that don’t.
I once listened to an interview (I didn’t note who) with the interviewee commenting that some corporations have exploited human capital, polluted the air and water, and done other damage. When they make substantial donations, it is often to burnish their own names and reputations.
He said that they cannot make up for the harm they’ve done. The action that would go furthest is to change policy making it harder for others to do what they’ve done.
One similar discussion on giving well is thIs NPR 1A episode on altruistic giving:
https://the1a.org/segments/philosopher-william-macaskill-on-how-to-do-the-most-good/
I liked what Ziff had to say but also agree with Elisa that I don’t find RMN or Trump at all charismatic. and get a rather unpleasant visceral feeling from images of either. And my brain can’t remove an uncanny likeness of RMN to Mr Burns.
Just to be clear, I agree that both Trump and RMN lack charisma. I’m just saying that that’s the style of leadership that they both appear to be going for. I’m not sure about RMN, but certainly Trump seems to have connected well as a charismatic leader with a particular audience of aggrieved white people in the US who feel like the advantage they had assumed they held over black people, LGBT people, people for whom English is not the first language, and women, is eroding. It’s horrifying, but it does appear to work for him. Just as he openly puts down people who follow rules as suckers, his aggrieved fans feel like they shouldn’t have to worry about rules either. Rules are for suckers, for black people, for gay people. Rules aren’t for the God-ordained straight white Christian ruling class!
Di, Similar reaction.
Australia just had an election between a 57 year old and a 59 year old. Age was not an issue, but the one that lost seemed to be motivated by retaining power .
Trump is 76, Biden is 79, Nelson 98, Harris 57, I am 74.
So physical decline is well underway by 50 (not many professional athletes over 40), and cognative decline by 60.
Why anyone over 70 is still working concerns me? Do they really believe they are the best/most capable person to do the job? And it is not a general view of the aged; have you seen more bishops in their 70, 80, and 90s since RMN?
Geoff, sometimes people work after the age of 70 because they have to for financial reasons. Sometimes, people work after the age of 70 because they like working. You may have been making a rhetorical point, but you should at least acknowledge that not everyone who works after the age of 70 is doing so for nefarious reasons.
On a not completely unrelated note, just as we have Godwin’s Law, I wonder if someone needs to create a corollary to it in which every discussion of anything political (or, seeming, religious) will eventually mention Trump. Maybe if that stopped occurring, we could move beyond him….
I’ve been ready to move past DT since long before the “Grab them by their p*ssy” tapes. But part of me hopes he runs again, is challenged in the primaries, loses, but doesn’t concede, claims voter fraud, and then actively campaigns against whoever wins the nomination and the GOP goes down in flames. It may be a crazy dream, but hope springs eternal.
Alas I can’t think of an analogous LDS scenario.
MTodd that is a hopefull scenario.
A, I acknowledge that not everyone who works after 70 has nepharious reasons.
Neither Trump or Nelson, are working for financial reasons, and if you have to work at 98 for financial reasons that would be elder abuse. Both appear to like the adulation. I don’t know how old you are but, as someone in mid 70s, things go down hill physically, and mentally after 70. I would also like to see Biden step aside and let Kamala show how she could do the job.
I’ve heard this idea that we should just move beyond trump. That would make sense if he had left the scene. If he is still spreading his lies, and threatining democracy, as no other president has, he should be opposed, not moved on from.
When President Hinckley worked into his 90’s, I he was just the ever busy servant who, like Jimmy Carter, wanted to keep doing good to the very end. And, as I recall, the sentiment was overwhelmingly generous toward him in that role. It saddens me to think that sentiment doesn’t continue with RMN, and I would love to untangle what elements of leadership or personality extract such different reactions from the people. Public opinion has to be earned, and it seems such a fickle thing.
Similarly, it seemed that the world kept an even keel in supporting Queen Elizabeth throughout the geriatric years of her reign, knowing that she, like President Hinckley, provided consistency and unwavering loyalty to her people. (May she Rest In Peace). I don’t think the next heir will receive that same “pass” for longevity and geriatric leadership. And, I hope that the brethren realize that the gerontocracy that is church leadership, is not always smooth sailing or appreciated by the saints. , just because a few isolated and beloved examples Miraculously made it work.