This is a guest post from Jim Bennett.
It’s remarkable to see how many people are just now discovering how loathsome Senator Mike Lee is. (What, comparing Trump to Captain Moroni wasn’t enough for you?) But sooner or later, it seems that all decent people come to discover what a disgrace this man is to the Church, to his state, and to the nation at large.
I first met Mike Lee on the campaign trail when he ran against, and ultimately defeated, my father back in 2010. Those were the days where I went to every campaign rally and Lincoln Day dinner and had to watch him wave his pocket Constitution in front of crowds like it was some kind of magic talisman, insisting that only he understood that all the answers could be found in that document, and that he was the true successor to the “wise men raised up unto this very purpose” who fashioned the Constitution through divine inspiration.
He ended every speech with that “wise men” quote from the D&C, and for good reason. It was his dog whistle to every Republican looking for the man who would save the Constitution as it hung by a thread, a dubious prophecy that has had everyone in Utah’s GOP eager to mount every White Horse that comes along. Back then, and even now, many believe this man was called of God to “save the Constitution,” endowing him with a divine commission that excuses the fact that he is more interested in being a based edgelord than an actual legislator.
From The Bulwark
The Bulwark conducted a review of Mike Lee’s Twitter feed, @BasedMikeLee, over the past month. During that time period (30 days), the senator posted nearly 1,400 times, or about 46 posts a day. Of those posts, about half (697) were original tweets. The rest where retweets of other accounts or his own posts. The posts came mostly during normal business hours. But not exclusively. Of the nearly 700 posts Lee authored on Twitter, 47 of them came between the hours of 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. eastern daylight time.
Apparently God is using him to save the Constitution one tweet at a time. It doesn’t matter that what he tweets is largely performative nonsense that is antithetical to the teachings of the Church he continues to embarrass. No, if you ask MAGA Mormons, God is on Mike Lee’s side, so the rest of us ought to shut up.
But what’s remarkable, and what few people realize, is that “the rest of us” includes Rex Lee, Mike Lee’s father, a fine Latter-day Saint and arguably one of the greatest constitutional scholars that has ever lived. On just about every salient constitutional point, the father and the son not only disagree, but are diametrically opposed.
To illustrate this, I’d like to quote some excerpts from a speech that Rex Lee, former president of LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University, gave at the institution over which he presided. The address was titled “The Constitution and the Restoration.”
Behold a Lee who makes a whole lot of sense:
The descriptive phrase most commonly used by many members of the Church is that our Constitution was “divinely inspired.” Unfortunately, some Church members have deduced from that general, non-scriptural description more than the scriptures or the Constitution or common sense will sustain.
That is, from the general label “divinely inspired ,” some assume that the Constitution is tantamount to scripture, and therefore perfect in every respect, reflecting in every provision and every sentence the will of our Heavenly Father, just as is true of the Book of Mormon or the Doctrine and Covenants. That view cannot withstand analysis. Our Constitution has some provisions that are not only not divine, they are positively repulsive. The classic example is contained in Article V, which guaranteed as a matter of constitutional right that the slave trade would continue through at least the year 1808.
There are other provisions that are not as offensive as the slavery guarantee, but they were quite clearly bad policy and certainly were not divinely inspired in the same sense as are the scriptures. Moreover, regarding the Constitution as tantamount to scripture is difficult to square with the fact that our republic has functioned very well, probably even better, after at least one of its original provisions (requiring United States senators to be elected by their respective state legislatures rather than by the people at large) was amended out of existence by the Seventeenth Amendment.
This is especially interesting given that one of the centerpieces of Mike Lee’s campaign was the repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment. When my father brought this up in a candidate forum in Bountiful, Lee said his father “wasn’t always right,” but that we should “not speak ill of the dead.”
Mike’s repeated invocation of the “wise men being raised up” to write the Constitution gave the clear impression that the Constitution was, indeed, the very scripture that his father said it wasn’t. Rex Lee addressed that issue head on, and came to the opposite conclusion:
Probably the most helpful statement is contained in section 101, verse 80 of the Doctrine and Covenants: “And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose.” I submit that this scripture makes it very clear that our Heavenly Father’s involvement in the bringing forth of our Constitution was more an involvement in process than in end result. As President Benson has stated, “It is my firm belief that the God of Heaven raised up the Founding Fathers and inspired them to establish the Constitution of this land.” His focus, and the focus of the Doctrine and Covenants, frees us of the burden of trying to equate the Constitution with scripture and, therefore, to justify every part.
Mike Lee has spent a great deal of time bemoaning our immigration system, repeatedly calling for the repeal of the 14th Amendment, which made slaves citizens. He also railed against the commerce clause, and Rex had some strong words on those subjects, too.
One of the most important features of the American Constitution, both in theory and in practice, is the magnificent breadth of its most important provisions–notably the commerce clause, most of the Bill of Rights guarantees, and the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process and equal protection clauses. The lack of specificity of these and other provisions has almost certainly been essential to the ability of this document drafted in 1787 to survive over 200 years of the largest and most unanticipated change that any country at any time has ever experienced.
The younger, stupider Lee would often wave a pocket copy of the Constitution at questioners who had specific policy concerns. “Just read this darn thing,” he would often say, referencing the magical document in his hands. “The answers are all there.”
The older, wiser Lee disagreed profoundly.
You can read the Constitution very carefully and not find, even in a footnote or an annotated version, any answer to [specific policy] questions… nothing in the text of the Constitution, and nothing in its history, provides the answer to those and many other practical questions that arise every day.
And what of the White Horse that the younger Lee keeps trying to ride? Is he really going to save the Constitution as it dangles by a thread?
The elder Lee had no patience at all for that kind of nonsense.
A final area of constitutional interest unique to Latter-day Saints finds its source in the well-known “hanging by a thread” statements by the Prophet Joseph Smith. Similar statements have been reiterated by no fewer than six of his successors, including the current prophet. In a forthcoming book to be published by the Religious Studies Center, Professor Donald Cannon lists over forty instances in which these seven presidents have either used the “thread” metaphor or something like it. But in none of those quotations cited by Professor Cannon has any Church leader ever been very specific as to the metaphor’s meaning.
Unfortunately, some members of the Church have been all too ready to offer their own explanations. The only thing consistent about these explanations is that in each instance, it was the Church member’s own unresolved, often very private, grievance that supplied evidence that the thread was beginning to fray, sometimes beyond repair. Among some people, any problem from a tax increase to a failure to collect the garbage on time to a boundary dispute with one’s neighbor is likely to call forth the observation that it is certainly easy to see how the Constitution is hanging by a thread. A companion assertion is that the election or appointment of certain persons, often the person making the assertion, to designated positions provides the key to preventing the demise of our constitutional system.
In my view, this is another instance in which going beyond what our leaders have said can be misleading at best, and potentially fraught with mischief.
So when considering the differences between the two Lees, if Mike is on the side of the angels, does that make a demon out of Rex? Or, in the Lee family, has the Constitutional apple fallen pretty far from the tree?
Wheat & Tares 
I appreciate this post. I don’t believe in excommunication, but the LDS church could make a statement that Senator Lee’s beliefs, frequent incidents of incivility and disregard for the truth do not reflect those beliefs and practices expected of members and LDS politicians who support the teachings of Christ. In a sense they could censure him, perhaps without using his name. This is a moral issue.
Hey Jim: “Sour Grapes” really don’t look good on you….this is nothing more than “a little boy trying to defend his Father”; whom by the way I voted against – for he simply became just like every other politician who takes a sip of the power in D.C. and becomes instantly addicted. They are all (in equal measure) deserving of comtempt.
So many good points brought up that most LDS members refuse to deal with.
My brother-in-law worked with Mike Lee at BYU when Mike was the student body president. When Mike ran for Senate (there could be another essay about how bad the caucus system is), he said he’d NEVER vote for him. He said that his arrogance hurt the University. We can see it’s hurt the church as well, not only with those on the outside who view us as crazy, but from the inside, where people take what he says to extremes and use it to justify their MAGA beliefs and ignore the Christlike parts of the gospel.
Finally, I just have to say this to get it off my chest: how disappointed I was in Lee’s comments about the legislators in Minnesota. While perusing Facebook, I saw a post from one of Utah’s television stations (not KSL where I might understand the responses) about the Minnesota comments, and I couldn’t believe how many came to his defense. I’d read the words and then go look at the profiles. The words were filled with hate and anger towards the very people Sen. Lee had just disparaged, and then I’d look at their profile, and it would be a sickly sweet picture(s) with an explanation of how important the church was to their lives.
Mike Lee is an embarrassment to the church, state, and country. The Church’s nonreaction to him encourages the crazies like him and pushes away those who can think for themselves, even as the church insults them by saying they can’t or won’t think. Finally, it exposes cracks in many of the church’s doctrines, history (Mike is a direct descendant of John D. Lee, but then I guess so is Rex, and one seems to have repented and the other embraced JDL’s legacy), and current position in the world.
Thank you for writing this post. It opened up a lot of feelings that have been simmering. I didn’t always agree with your dad, but he was a good man, honest, and willing to listen. He was the first casualty in what is now the MAGA party destroying the Republican party, started by Mike Lee’s victory in a closed convention of Tea Party supporters who grew up to be MAGA crazies. Someone writing an essay about the history of Republicanism from McCarthy, through the John Birch Society, to the Tea Party, and eventually Trump and MAGA, with all the money and secret meetings that went into that transition, would be great.
Hi, Grizzerbear!
The “sour grapes” accusation is pretty tired, given that my father has been out of office for fourteen years and dead for nine. I readily acknowledge that Mike Lee beat him fair and square, and rehashing the 2010 election is a waste of everyone’s time, including yours. (Maybe especially yours. Gloating fifteen years after your victory isn’t a good look.)
One of the reasons why this is important to me, however, is your final point, i.e. that politicians “are all (in equal measure) deserving of comtempt [sic].” The only defense of the indefensible for Lee and Trump alike seems to be whataboutism. Since you can’t claim that Lee’s grotesqueries are somehow good, you have to claim that everyone else is just as bad.
This is profoundly untrue.
You may have loathed my father’s politics, as is your right, but his decency, civility, and integrity are beyond dispute. The idea that Bob Bennett would ever have tweeted something as vicious or vile as Lee has over the past few days is ludicrous, and you know it. You also know that you can’t defend Lee on the merits of what he’s actually done, so you resort to smearing my late father and insulting me in the hopes of dragging us all into the mud you and Lee love to swim in.
No thanks.
This is one of the most noxious consequences of Trumpism – we have normalized the abnormal, and the inexcusable is now commonplace. Most people, even most politicians, have the common decency to know not to use murder as a platform for stand-up comedy. But since Trump has made the unacceptable acceptable, people like you claim that Lee should get a pass because everybody does it, and a pox on all their houses.
But everybody doesn’t do it. And even if they did – which they don’t – certainly this is no way for Latter-day Saints to behave. So shame on you; shame on Mike Lee, and shame on anyone who thinks politics provide a license to ignore the principles outlined in the Sermon on the Mount.
I also agree with Old Man thoughts. From my perspective such as it is, Sen. Lee behaviors while in office does not reflect well on what the Church or it members should be or become in regards to what Jesus taught. There are many members of the church who reflect Sen. Lee’s worldview so he is not alone. My only hope at least for the citizens of the state of Utah can find in themselves to find and elect a strong candidate that can stand up Sen. Lee and who can better reflect what the church he belongs to and the people he represents.
Thanks for this perspective, Jim. I remember when the Tea Party rose to oust your father from power during the early Obama years. The partisan divide had been growing for some time, but the Tea Party seemed to tip the scales and put the Republican Party and the conservative movement on the path to a sort of extreme nihilism that bases its policies on simple raw resentment and hostility to whatever Democrats and liberals are for. The anger and resentment of the conservative base turned out to be so extreme that they ended up casting out Tea Party favorites, such as Paul Ryan, in favor of something more extreme. Mike Lee used to an anti-Trumper. Then he sold his soul, like so many other Republicans. He saw what happened to principled Republicans like Mitt Romney. I remember when Romney supported Trump’s first impeachment over Trump’s coercing of Ukraine to investigate his political opponent. I remember the billboard I would see driving down I-15 in Utah that said, “Mr. Romney, please resign.” So Mike Lee decided to lean into Trumpism. After all, the Trumpist base seems to reward people for promoting conspiracy theories, undying cult-like support for Trump, nihilistic extreme anti-government policies, and insults and childing behavior towards critics. I simply don’t understand what the US has become. It is full of people whose politics are driven by nothing but rage, resentment, and anger. Grizzerbear is a perfect example of this. There are no ideas to solve real problems. Environment, foreign policy, women’s health, healthcare costs, etc. Their only policies seem to be to push the exact opposite of what Democrats are proposing as hard as they can and act like victims when criticized for their nihilism. They even accuse the Democrats of being the divisive ones.
I was awestruck watching Nancy Mace post a video that she recorded of herself engaging in utterly disgraceful behavior at a store where she was confronted, seemingly politely, by a person who asked her why she wasn’t doing townhalls. What ensued was a profanity- and insult-laced tirade by Mace directed at the person, which Mace seemed to be proud of enough to flaunt the exchange on her own social media account. She figured that she would be rewarded by her base for such behavior. At what point does this end? I still predict that this is all going to come tumbling down at some point. It is like an overbought stock that just keeps going up and up and up. We all know it is going to come crashing down. Just we wait. But the waiting is a lot longer than I had ever thought it would be. A recession is on the horizon, most likely. When that happens, it will likely happen under Trump, the avalanche is coming and the Trumpists will be buried into oblivion.
Bravo Jim. Excellent post and excellent comment.
Jim,
Thank you for your post, but more importantly, thank you for your rebuttal statement. You displayed what we need to recover in our country, and I’m sad to say, state.
I wonder what Jesus Christ thinks about this post.
I know that Jim does not criticize Church leaders, but the Brethren’s silence on this issue is tacit approval of the behavior and beliefs of Trump, Sen. Lee, and their MAGA Mormon supporters.
“I wonder what Jesus Christ thinks about this post.”
I suspect he is impressed with the Saints who understand and appreciate saintly behavior and can stand up to a “leader” who does not.
Lee telling people all the answers are in the constitution reminds me of when another Mike (Johnson) was elected Speaker of the House last year, and told the media that if they wanted his views on any matter they need only consult the Bible. Aside from the obvious problems that neither document answers many salient questions of our time, such a response is also arrogant (presumption that the document supports 100% of the person’s views), intellectually lazy (avoids directly engaging with specific questions), and amounts to an appeal to authority (gives the document and presumed “correct” interpretations final say on any matter).
@Quentin I think David French had a really good take on Mike Johnson’s “all the answers are in the Bible” approach:
Mike Johnson:
“‘What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’ I said, ‘Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it.’ That’s my worldview.”
David French responds:
“That quote is less illuminating than many people think. The Bible says a great deal about a great number of subjects, but it is open to interpretation on many and silent on many more. (It says nothing, for example, about the proper level of funding for the IRS, Johnson’s first substantive foray into policy as Speaker.) I know Democrats who also root their political philosophy in the Bible. I’m a Never Trump evangelical conservative, and I, too, look to Scripture to guide my mind and heart.”
@Quentin, the difference is that David French acknowledges there are complexities than humans have to work through when considering scripture as a guiding principle. Mike Johnson statement reveals nothing similar. David French is being coy–playing a rhetorical game to reframe Johnson’s comment to boost religious cred among those on the left. But they’re not the same.
aurelius11, Jesus was a liberal
1. Thank you Jim Bennett for this post. I have never lived in Utah except for my 2 month MTC residency (I live in the Texas Amarillo East Stake). And since Senator Mike Lee’s election in 2010 and his ever greater reprehensible behavior, I have never understood his allure to the electorate. This post helps.
2. With your mention of immigration policy and Lee’s stands on it, I find most troubling how Lee can correlate what he’s saying and advocating now with what he should have experienced during his two year Church mission in the Texas McAllen Mission back in the early 1990’s. For the uninitiated, here in Texas we call the southern tip of Texas “The Valley”. The McAllen Mission encompasses it all. It is a term of endearment depicting the mixture of the two dominant cultures, Mexican and that of the United States. So my question is how can someone who served there for 2 years and was enveloped by all of the culture and traditions and ties that it represents, be a strong advocate of all the vile that Trump and Trumpism represents. The whiplash is backbreaking.
Instereo-
In response to your comment “Someone writing an essay about the history of Republicanism from McCarthy, through the John Birch Society, to the Tea Party, and eventually Trump and MAGA, with all the money and secret meetings that went into that transition, would be great” I share this:
About 15 years or so ago, I was having to come to grips with 2 realizations: 1) Can I be a faithful member of the Church and not be a Republican? (I’m a convert and it was engrained into my head by those who taught me how to be a member that faithful Church membership and the Democratic Party cannot coincide. 2) It seems the Republican Party in its current state has left me; not I it.
So I went on a quest to trace what happened to the Republican Party of the 1940’s – 1950’s to today through a lot of reading. The following books helped me the most:
1. Anti-Intellectualism In American Life (1964) by Richard Hofstadter: discusses the GOP of the 1940’s and 1950’s.
2. The following 4 books by Rick Perlstein: a) Before the Storm (@ the Goldwater movement)(2002); b) Nixonland (2008); c) The Invisible Bridge (Nixon to Reagan)(2014); Reaganland (2020) And Perlstein has a book that is forthcoming that covers Reagan to present : The Infernal Triangle (forthcoming in 2026).
Dennis McCrea,
I just read “Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right” by: Matthew Dallek and many other books about early and contemporary US History. Part of the reason I read it was because my parents were members of the Birch Society, and I remember 1. many of the “doctrines” they pushed and 2. How many in the church were repulsed by the JBS. It seems interesting that now, 50 years later, my former Bishop’s family at his funeral talked about how proud he was to be MAGA.
I think the saddest thing about everything we have been discussing in this particular post is that people now choose their own facts instead of agreeing on certain unchangeable truths. When you talk about opinions, it’s worse because people not only disagree but also call people names for believing a certain way.
I think the best thing you brought up is that there is so much information out there that shows how things have changed and are going down the wrong path, but people choose to ignore it. At the same time, they cling to old assumptions, refusing to change but doing so without any serious thought or consideration.
Jim:
Thank you. I met your father when he spoke at a “Why I Believe” fireside in the Centreville Virginia stake. Unlike the previous speaker in the series (the other long-serving senator from Utah) your father took pains to divert attention from his participation in major events, preferring instead to examine the lessons he drew. (His stories about working for Howard Hughes were fascinating, if not a bit off-topic.)
Where does Mike Lee’s online cruelty spring from? Certainly not from his parents. A few months ago I contacted his office with the following:
>>quote
Dear Senator Lee:
How can you stand by and watch the National Institutes of Health be gutted?
I ask because that is the very institution that saved your father’s life. (Your father spoke publicly about his time at NIH, so I am not violating his privacy.) During your father’s stay at NIH, C____ W_____ and I (elders in the Chevy Chase Ward) brought the sacrament to your parents every Sunday afternoon for several weeks. During some visits, your father was quite weak; during others, quite convivial. I was struck throughout by your parents’ greatness of spirit and devotion to goodness.
Consequently, I cannot comprehend how their son could be involved in promoting dissension and fear among the people of our great country and helping to dismantle institutions that saved your father’s life.
Please remember your roots. Stand up and show courage to withstand the onslaught of half truths and outrages currently playing out in Washington.
<</quote
I get that we all diverge from our upbringing in good ways and bad, but Mike Lee's upbringing surely included lessons from the Book of Mormon about the dangers of spreading lies and contention. To quote from a recent episode of Disney's Andor:
“I believe we are in crisis. The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil.” (Mon Mothma)
Reed
Yes, Andor. I was totally blown away by Senator Mon Mothma’s speech. It’s that good. I urge everyone to head over to youtube and put Mon Mothma speech into the search box,
While I am a big fan of the other superior franchise, I have to admit–Andor is a masterpiece. (even with the slow start of season 1) You don’t need to know anything about Star Wars. There’s no jedi or lightsabers. Just ordinary people. The last half of season 2 (which includes Mon Mothma speech) is some of the best television I’ve ever seen. {Unless one serves the empire and fallen to the monster screaming the loudest}
Excellent post, thank you for writing it.
I’ve also been dismayed by Mike Lee’s behavior. It goes beyond partisanship to being downright uncivilized. My thoughts about his constant appeal to the Constitution is that a lot of MAGA want to dial back civilization to 1790 levels, particularly the racism and sexism of that time period. The Constitution is the answer to all questions if you set aside 250 years of social progress.
Thank you for writing this. I enjoy your Inside Out discussions.
Unfortunately, Mike seems to be hugging the John D Lee tree–his great great (not sure how many greats) grandfather. For some reason Mike has felt it necessary to try to revise the history of John D Lee’s motives and involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre on X–to which Benjamin Park has responded concerning the ridiculousness of that. Mike’s behavior and interactions are appalling. But, I find it equally as troubling that the church remains silent on the matter. In fact I find it incredibly sad and disappointing. What happened to all the bravado of do what is right let the consequence follow? Or dare to stand alone? Maybe it’s time to stop iterating on policy concerning gay and trans people and stop harassing inactives, but instead speak to the actual issues of the day–that being a large portion of mormons voting for authoritarianism, a rapist and convicted felon, for law breaking and general horrible treatment of fellow human beings–the list goes on. And then these same people go to the temple. Before I went on my mission, my grandfather had me memorize a part of D&C 121, the part where it highlights priesthood is connected with righteousness and when we undertake to cover sin, gratify pride and vain ambition, or exercise unrighteous dominion–the heavens withdraw and priesthood goes away. I can’t help but feel that most of those provisions for priesthood removal are in play right now.
chrisrobison,
You had a wise grandfather. (I’ve known at least two wise Robisons who were old enough to be your grandfather.)
lastlemming,
If one of those Robisons happened to be a former BYU professor of agronomy and horticulture, that would be mine.