Donald Trump famously declared that his administration would produce so much success that Americans might get “tired of winning”. He often joked that supporters would beg him to stop winning because it was “too much”, promising to continue winning regardless. In 2026, he reiterated this theme, claiming Americans were “exhausted” by excessive winning. So, is too much success a bad thing?
Well, yes, if you are a parasite, too much success is a very bad thing indeed. If you kill the host too quickly, you prevent the ability of a virus to spread to new hosts. In other words, you can succeed your way to failure if you are in a parasitic relationship. And most social groups are predicated on a form of parasitic relationship. All communities include personal ties, communication networks, give and take, support, interdependence, etc.
Here’s what unsuccessful parasites do, as patterns:
- Extract too aggressively
- Deplete the resource base
- Collapse the system they depend on
When these things happen, the host dies before the parasite can spread to a new living host, and therefore, the parasite ends up engineering its own defeat.
And of course, governments are not the only “parasitic” relationships or systems out there. So are companies, families, and religions. Basically all human systems operate in a similar way and are vulnerable to these same patterns.
The over-extraction problem. In biology, a parasite that takes too much energy leads to the host dying (which causes the parasite to die out). In a human organization that extracts too much time, loyalty, money, or labor, people burn out, disengage, move to less demanding organizations, or leave altogether. For example:
- Companies that demand extreme hours eventually find it hard to attract top talent.
- Religions that demand total conformity lose membership.
- Governments that overtax or use taxes to enrich leaders result in economic decline.
The system ultimately weakens its own ability to extract by taking more than it gives.
The behavioral-hijacking problem. In biology, some hosts behave in ways that increase risk (e.g. rodents approach cats). This can also happen in human systems when people are encouraged to act against their own long-term interests:
- Work cultures that glorify burnout and self-sacrifice
- Ideologies that discourage or punish questioning
- Groups that reward self-sacrifice beyond sustainability
These groups will find that they gain short-term compliance with long-term damage. The example that immediately came to mind on this one is the magazine drives Gen X (and earlier) kids were encouraged to do. We got rewards for knocking on random doors to get them to buy things for the school. That’s how I got bit on the face by someone’s German shephard when I was five.
The visibility & containment problem. Diseases like Ebola follow this pattern–they strike with such immediately visible devastation that they are contained quickly and eradicated. Similar things can happen in human systems when they allow or foster:
- high-profile scandals
- abuse allegations
- financial collapse
These highly visible events alert the “host” that all is not well in Zion. They trigger backlash, regulation, lawsuits, protests, or mass exits. People resist when the harm is made really obvious or egregious.
The failure to adapt problem. When a more lethal strain (e.g. Myxoma virus) dies out, it is often replaced by a more successful less-lethal strain. Likewise, organizations with rigid ideologies that can’t soften or won’t evolve often die out and are replaced by more flexible systems. Some examples include:
- Organizations that can’t adapt to cultural change
- Movements that double down instead of reforming
Flexibility leads to survival. Rigidity leads to decline. An LDS example that came to mind was the uproar when bishops started using temple recommend interviews to ask couples, disapprovingly, about birth control and oral sex. Members en masse disagreed with their local dentist/bishop intruding on intimate matters in their marriage. Church headquarters heard about the outcry, quickly reversing course. They changed policy to leave these matters up to couples and keep bishops from prurient fishing expeditions. We all know for a fact that if they hadn’t gotten pushback, those questions would have stayed. They weren’t being asked by accident.
The resource collapse problem. Beehives infected with the Varroa destructor quickly collapsed, with the destruction spreading from drone to drone. When you deplete your base (workers, believers, citizens), the system collapses. Examples from human systems:
- Overworked employees don’t actually work harder long-term. Eventually, productivity drops, workers leave, and resentful workers commit sabotage.
- Disillusioned members will not invite friends to join, and missionary efforts stall as members exit.
- Distrust in institutions leads to civic breakdown as citizens rebel against taxation without benefits (or in the case of gerrymandering, taxation without representation–seems we haven’t learned the lessons of our own history).
When the host is gone, the system collapses. The LDS example I thought of is the near impossibility many wards have of filling the building cleaning roster. It’s almost always the same families over and over, and it’s bad enough that most wards just assign based on last initial and hope that out of the 20 families they’ve “voluntold” at least one will show up. Likewise, some wards have had such a hard time filling callings that callings have been collapsed (e.g. bishopric now leads YM organization?).
To summarize, self-defeating systems (like unsuccessful parasites) usually optimize for:
- loyalty now
- growth now
- control now
But ignore:
- sustainability
- human limits
- trust
Here are some questions you can ask to determine if a system is self-defeating:
- Extraction: Is the system taking more than it’s giving?
- Adaptation: Does the organization change when conditions change?
- Autonomy: Are participants allowed to question or leave safely?
- Regeneration: Can the organization attract and retain new members sustainably?
- Feedback: Does the system respond to criticism–or suppress it?
Any system or organization with several “no”s is at risk of being “too successful” and killing its host. Particularly when systems filter out internal critics, reward loyalty over truth, and punish dissent, they are incapable of stopping themselves from increasing harm, which leads to reduced feedback, more extreme behavior, and faster decline of the system and the people within it.
As a Trekker, I can’t possibly talk about parasites and not mention the Trill species. Originally introduced as a kind of kooky love interest for Beverly Crusher in a throwaway episode of Next Generation, we really gain understanding of how this symbiotic species developed as a culture with the Dax symbiont in Deep Space Nine. The Trill species evolved over time from a not-very-promising human species and a highly intelligent but physically limited worm-like species making the choice to join. In the original Next Generation introductory episode, the humanoid part of the Trill were little more than disposable meat puppets, used by the superior parasitic worm-creatures who inhabited them. By Deep Space Nine, symbionts were only joined with the elite humanoids–those with very high levels of personal accomplishment, so that both were bringing something significant to the relationship. The symbiont (the worm-like creature) would survive through 6 or 7 human hosts, and would continue to pass on the knowledge and experiences of these lifetimes to new hosts through rituals and shared consciousness.
Like the Trill species, a truly successful organization has to contribute to the flourishing of the people in the system, not just to the leaders or an elite class who extract value from the body.
- How do you think our country is doing in these terms?
- Do you think the church is successful at having a healthy relationship to its members or that it extracts too much?
- Have you seen these dynamics at play in the workplace or elsewhere?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
Jeff Strong’s new book Torn presents evidence of decline in the church. In spite of claims of rapid growth by the leaders, the church knows that it has reached a tipping point. In consequence, it has begun to demand increasingly less of its members and will probably demand even less in the future. I’m hoping that tithing settlement will fall by the wayside soon.
As for the country, Trump and Trumpism will have a long-lasting impact on the US, if not the world. The economy has increasingly become K-shaped with the wealthy increasingly better off with the middle class increasingly struggling. His decision to launch a completely irresponsible war on Iran has begun to unleash what increasingly appears to be a stagflation crisis. Recession is on the horizon. When it hits, it will deal a coup de grace to this evil cult of personality that has illegitimately governed the country in full and in part since 2017.
The OP uses the word “extraction.” I want to think of a church as a place that refreshes, replenishes, and recharges its adherents, rather than as a place that extracts from them. Or, in other words, I want to think that a church exists for its members, rather members existing for the church.
I have seen both dimensions in my own church experience.
Is our country winning too much? No, quite the contrary. It seems to be losing not only wars but also economics, markets, scientific advancements, and medical prevention and advancements. We are winning in lying, hating, division, and blaming. We are winning in the move to authoritarianism, but losing with checks and balances. Ultimately, our country is so disconnected from reality that it seems a third think we are winning and two-thirds are sinking in despair. Actually, that’s probably for only those who care, because many of us have checked out and replaced civic engagement with sports, gambling, and entertainment.
As for the Church, maybe moving to make fewer demands on members in terms of meetings or activities, but it seems perfectly willing to exclude members for moral, financial, or political reasons. It makes statements about some topics and ignores others, and still will not talk about finances unless it’s about charity, where they can include volunteer hours as part of the money they spent.
Since I’m retired, I only see the workplace from my children’s experiences. There are a lot of demands with little compensation. It seems, though, with the stock market, that someone is getting theirs while most others are giving it to them. We don’t have slavery anymore, but low wages, expensive housing, groceries, fuel, or health care can keep people in subjection.
It seems we’ve gone from the Dark Ages, when religion was in charge of feudal states, to a corporate feudal state where a government that says it’s winning is actually taking so many things from most of us while benefiting the most wealthy, who people revere like Gods because of their success. There’s a huge gap between the winning 1% and us, the losing plebeians and serfs.
Brad D:
I’m familiar with the statistics provided in “Torn”.
You state:
“the church knows that it has reached a tipping point. In consequence, it has begun to demand increasingly less of its members and will probably demand even less in the future.”
I have seen nothing of the kind! In fact, LDS Inc. seems to be doubling down! Can you name any actual examples of less demands being made on members………?
When the LDS Corporation makes cleaning the buildings a paid position, I will agree with you!
hawkgrrl – would you consider deleting grizz’s comments? They’re especially meanspirited today.
Star Trek mention!! The Trill are also in Discovery; I haven’t seen DS9. The teaching about both parties enriching the other makes it a real symbiosis rather than parasitism. Each party has to consider what it’s bringing to the table.
I want to comment specifically on this statement you made: “Like the Trill species, a truly successful organization has to contribute to the flourishing of the people in the system, not just to the leaders or an elite class who extract value from the body.”
It seems to me that the USA has gotten away from helping people flourish in favor of letting corporations do whatever they want. The government (elected by the people and accountable to the people) should be defending individual rights vis-a-vis corporations. I find it so odd that conservatives despise govt regulation. You know that regulations are designed to save lives and make life better, right? Food safety regulations; cleanliness of food processing plants; cleaning up chemicals rather than dumping them into waterways; and etc. The govt should be ensuring that corporations aren’t harming people for profit. Yes, complying with regulations is an expense for a company, so that reduces their profits. But it benefits individuals to have fewer contaminated food recalls, less chemicals in the water, and so forth.
Same thing with labor rights. Individual employees need govt protection from the big corporations we work for. Corporations don’t want to pay a living wage, or pay for safe working conditions. The govt has to force those things to happen. The biggest theft by dollar amount in this country is unpaid wages. Corporations withhold wages when they can, and only pay up if someone forces them to. The Department of Labor used to work on those actions, but Trump has gutted it.
And the other way corporations get to crush individuals (my pet peeve) are all the mandatory arbitration and class action waivers we have to sign. It is impossible to find a bank that does NOT make you sign mandatory arbitration and class action waivers. What this means is that a bank can steal from its customers a little bit and know it will never face penalties. For example. Wells Fargo devised a whole bunch of ways to cheat its customers. Someone put together a class action and sued and won $80 million in restitution for the class. Then the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was established by Obama and gutted by Trump) started looking into Wells Fargo and the required restitution went up into the billions. Plus the CFPB was able to fully investigate and basically whip Wells Fargo back in line. It was after the class action against Wells Fargo that banks started adding the class action waiver to their terms of service.
Libertarians think individuals should enforce all their rights by themselves. Well, no one can do that because everyone is forced into arbitration and denied the chance to be part of a class action.
To defend individuals against corporations, Congress should pass a law stating that mandatory arbitration and class action waivers CANNOT be enforced by a corporation against an individual. Let corporations fear lawsuits again. Maybe they’ll stop running roughshod over their customers and employees.
Brad D: Tithing is the LAST thing the church will let go of. Even this past general conference had the awful talk about selling the car he needed to get to work so that he could pay his tithing. SMDH (I just reread your comment and you said tithing settlement. I suppose they might eliminate that, but I’m not holding my breath.)
Janey: A couple of quick thoughts about your political observation. The root of so much of the problem with US politics today is a direct byproduct of Citizens United. In a system where corporations are allowed to fund politicians (both sides of the aisle) then corporations rule the country. They will always have outsize influence. Lobbyists are more powerful than senators and other elected officials. Politicians have to go where the money is or they will no longer be in office. It was a disastrous decision that has led to a fundamental corruption of our democracy.
Aside from that, the other issue I see at play with the GOP specifically is that they still cling to the debunked idea of trickle down economics. The problem is that the wealth doesn’t actually trickle down. The richest among us are truly twisted individuals. They are beyond help, IMO. I’m not a fan of the Democrats’ economic policies in general either. Yes, the rich should pay fair taxes (which they absolutely do not today), but we’ll never get to a place where the rest of us can free ride off that. I am much more in favor of the rationality of the economists on the left in general, though. I do think some of the regulatory stuff is out of control, but unlike the current administration I don’t think the solution is to deliberately destroy the environment.
As far as the church easing up on what it demands of people, compared to what it provides, I see that exchange getting worse. Yes, the church has eased upon the number of things members are expected to go to and made the amount of time at church buildings less. But it has ended any sense of community that used to be based on spending time together. In order for a church organization to be worth more than a book, it has to provide community. There used to be community activities several times a month, from pot luck bring food and then pay to eat fund raisers. Yes, it took time to cook some food and it was on top of tithing, but it was getting the ward together to eat as well as making giving money less painful. We may have had to raise a bunch of funds for a building, but it was OUR building and we took pride in it. Now we don’t have to raise funds, but we share a building with 4 other wards and have to clean it, which is NOT fun, community building, or giving pride in our building. We do not have to show up at the building 4 times a week, but we also do not have a women run women’s organization. What we have is sex segregated Sunday school. Not a worthwhile trade off for what Wed morning RS work meeting/luncheon used to be. Not one of the “less demanding” trades have been a worthwhile trade. We have to give less time, well, except for spending Saturday over at church building doing house cleaning. But we get so little back in exchange for that time. We have to give more money because half-in members who don’t pay a full 10% of total income are no longer accepted as members in good standing. And now if you do not have a calling you are not interacting enough with other members to be any part of what little community is left.
So, what does the church offer now? The doctrine. Temple. But less community than my club that meets once a month, but with a snack and chitchat 1/2 hour before our 45 minute meeting. Doctrine we can get out of a book, so we do not need church for doctrine. And temple, supposedly we need the ceremony and words said over us. Once and done. So, do we need more than one year as an active tithe paying member for that? Not really. And enough people dislike the endowment that it will never have “staying power” over members. The church needs SOMETHING that it gives to the members for all that it demands from them.
But, is it going a correct direction on that? So far in the last few changes over ten twenty years, I see consolidating so fewer male callings are needed to run a ward, gutting the youth program into worthless, and “home centered church supported” and increased emphasis on temple. So, we have getting rid of the Boy Scout program and replacing it with nothing. Getting rid of personal progress for YW and not replacing it with anything. The church is now pushing home based church where parents teach children at home. It says home based church supported, but really what kind of support do they give families in teaching children? Do they provide a wonderful book full of interesting lessons? Nope. Do they teach the parents how to teach the gospel to their children in age appropriate ways? Nope. Do they provide infant care so the parents can teach the children without interruption? Nope. Just how do they support the parents in “home based gospel”? I see them doing nothing but applying guilt if children grow up and leave. Putting more focus and pressure and guilt around temples is not going to keep people active. Temple work is very solitary, with no way of getting to know others around you. The church seems to be pushing temple stuff on the youth, having them do name extraction and things like that, but if the youth I know are any indication, it isn’t keeping them.
Hawk, thank you for bringing up Citizens United, and how it has made the corporations the only thing able to control the political system. I was thinking of bringing up that when a super powerful, supper rich corporation has all the rights of a human, it skews things to the point that individual citizens are powerless. I got depressed even thinking about it.
One big difference between supper rich kings and supper rich corporations is that the people can overthrow a king. I just don’t think a guillotine will be effective in giving the power back to the people. How do we overthrow the very corporation we work for?
Loudly Sublime, the youth programs are less demanding callings than they used to be. Two-hour church has reduced the number of callings. The church has placed less emphasis on child-bearing for women and has accepted that women can, will, and should work outside the home. I understand there are still demands made and some members are under heavy burdens in callings. But not as much as it was in the past.
Yes, Citizens United, what a mistake for us, but it seems to serve the corporate world pretty well. Yes, it influences political parties through the money they spend on campaigns, messages, and so on and so on. It is equally spent on both parties. Even if it were 60/40, it’s more like 70/30 at best, spending on Republicans. I googled how much super PACs spend on each party, and that’s what I got. But the money is also spent on local campaigns, local issues, and is many times filtered through the actual political parties to them. It’s Dark Money. It’s unaccountable. It’s not transparent. It doesn’t help the average person but entrenches the wealthy and the corporations.
Another problem is that we have two parties where something can get done. Sure, there can be third parties, but they rarely win even in local elections. That said, the parties are not equal. Republicans have a very sophisticated social media network. Sure, the Democrats use social media, but they are amateurs compared to the Republicans with their influencers, media people, and their willingness to stretch the truth. The “money” behind it supports those who support Republicans much more than it goes to supporting Democrats. Republicans are also masters of controlling the narrative. The book “What’s the Matter with Kansas” talks all about that. Republicans have been very successful in painting Democratic supporters and the party as a whole as tax and spend, welfare mom, drug supporting, atheists, who hate Christians and prayer, and the list could go on and on. While Republicans portray themselves as law and order, moral, patriotic, God-fearing, simple folk. The reality is, there are a lot of billionaires among the Republican ranks who outspend the Democratic billionaires who are used as boogeymen, like George Soros.
So while I’m a registered Republican, I can vote in their primaries, but in the general election, I don’t blindly vote for them. I also don’t believe more and more what they say about anything. The Trump administration is the most corrupt we’ve ever had, with more billionaires in the cabinet or riding Air Force One to China than Democrats ever had. Of course, they constantly tell us how bad the Democrats are and how corrupt they are, but I feel it’s more to blame them on their own problems with solving problems or to distract us from what’s really happening with their policies and intentions. Granted, both parties have issues/problems, but right now, after almost 70 years since Goldwater, they control all parts of the government at the Federal level and in many states. We are seeing what they are doing, reversing years of work on social justice, the environment, corruption, and to add insult to injury, their trickle-down economics of tax cuts, cutting programs, and constant wars of choice have blown up the National Debt.
I like Janey’s comment so much! I just wanted to mention it again in case anyone skimmed or skipped it. Truly, the US is now a country of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. It was an awfully short step from corporations being people to corporations being the only people that matter.
Most churches are Corporations, as well. Religion is a business!
In response to a couple of comments regarding whether the church is demanding more or less of members, I made a couple of lists:
ways the church is requiring less than they used to:
1. funding ward budgets out of central church funds rather than asking for ward budget as a separate contribution (started in early 1990s).
2. centralized funding of the missionary department, escalating missionary contributions slower than inflation. (my mission in the early 1990s was $250 per month, over $550 today adjusted for inflation, but the missionary department is only asking $400 for US-based missionaries.)
3. shortened church services
4. shortened temple ordinances
5. ended external fundraising for Boy Scouts
ways the church is requiring more than they used to:
1. cleaning the church
If there’s something I missed here, I’d be interested to know. I hate cleaning the church as much as the next person, but honestly it’s the only thing I can think of where they have asked more than they used to. By my count, we’re moving toward requiring less rather than more.
Quentin, I don’t know that the church requires more across the board, but there are other examples of asking more.
Temple attendance:
I remember when my extremely active parents (my father was our bishop at the time) first began attending monthly temple sessions. It was a big change.
My ward now encourages us to attend at least weekly.
When I was in Mutual, it was a big deal when we got to perform baptisms for the dead. I think I only did this twice during my entire teen years.
Youth in our ward now not only do baptisms regularly–the last big youth activity was visiting 3 different temples in one day to perform baptisms. On top of that, they are expected to do the family history work to provide the names for those baptisms.
Senior missions:
I don’t remember any adults who served missions until I was well into my adult years, though I did know one man called as a mission president.
Now we have been counseled that it is not enough to serve merely one senior mission. The Utah Area Presidency has asked that we serve a minimum of two.
Family History work:
This has always been something we believed in, but the intense pressure to contribute is relatively new.
Cleaning the temple:
Relatively new in my experience, and something that must be done in the middle of the night.
Of course, you’re right that other time expectations have diminished. We are asked less often to go to the cannery. I don’t think there are any stake farms in my area that ask for volunteer service.
Fascinating post and conversation. Citizens United and the unlimited power it gives wealthy corporations to influence US politics is a critical and serious problem. I am deeply concerned that it has the power to weaken and destroy our nation.
The corporatism of the LDS Church deeply concerns me as well. As the church moves to become a trillion dollar church in 15 years, it encourages people to pay tithing rather than feed their children. However, most members do not realize that in the developing world, there is no fast offering program that provides food for starving babies. This is something the Church needs to address.
Because the Church has enough wealth to fund itself indefinitely, it could devote more of its wealth and manpower to addressing the serious issues of illiteracy, lack of clean water and food, and health care. With its vast wealth, it could save many lives and become a beacon of light to the world if it wisely used its resources and missionary forces to provide more humanitarian relief. Collaborating with local leaders, mission presidencies could identify local needs and then enlist the missionaries to help with them. Perhaps more people would be drawn to join a church that they saw following Jesus’ example–rather than a corporate entity that sought to aggrandize money, land, and high-end real estate.
Thanks, PWS for pointing all of those things out. I think many of the items on your list are things where cultural pressure is being exerted, and for me that pressure isn’t enough to make me feel guilty about not doing them, so they didn’t really occur to me. That sort of “soft expectation” is real, but it’s likely felt differently by different people, more so than being asked by the bishop for a specific contribution to the ward budget. I still believe the trajectory is in the direction of lower requirements. However, I fully expect there to be a big push in the coming decade which we might call “every member a temple worker”. I’ve been an ordinance worker and I see what it takes to keep the place running and I see how many unbuilt temples are being planned. Members will have a different relationship to the temple by the time this is all done. Some may even come to wonder why they celebrated having a new one announced in their neighborhood.
Another thing where the church is requiring more is temple recommends for any calling. This is a big change from when I was growing up. 90% of callings did not require a temple recommend. My future MIL was RSP and no temple recommend and not a tithe payer, and an inactive smoker as her husband. Her counselors, one might have had a TR, and the other was not even endowed with a nonmember husband. YM leaders were frequently the inactive guy who liked to help with Boy Scouts. No TR required, and not even activity or anything except willingness to do scouting. There were Priesthood Q adults for the YM, and that required the guy be at least active but not more. Our YW leader did not have a TR. My favorite SS teacher had no temple recommend and was taken away from a class of 15 girls and two inactive boys, and he was put as priesthood teacher for those same two totally inactive boys. I was pissed because this was the first teacher who had lasted more than two weeks because most of those 15 girls didn’t want to be in class and made it obvious with disrespect for the teacher. But two inactive boys were more important than 15 active girls and needed the teacher to sit and twiddle his thumbs in the hope one boy might show up. Inactives were still an considered part of the ward in many ways, and often contributed to ward budget, fast offerings, and building fund, attended the socials and were given Home teaching routes and often callings, even when they ONLY showed up for their calling.
Also, temple recommends were much easier to get. They were given to coffee drinkers who were “grandfathered” into the WoW, which was not a requirement for most of their adult lives. So, my husband and my coffee drinking grandparents had temple recommends all their coffee drinking lives. Temple recommends were given to women who paid no tithing, because tithing was counted under the husband and if your husband didn’t pay it, you as a lowly female did not have to. Even working women. They just said, my husband doesn’t want me to, and were given the recommend. Often men were given a recommend for being a part tithe payer.
It was just much more relaxed and less judgy. Nobody called to nag if your TR expired. Pretty much the TR was just for going to the temple and was not the measure of “worthiness” it is being used for now. And so if you were trying, many bishops handed out TR just because someone wanted to go.
There was no pressure on youth to do baptisms for the dead. The dances did not require any kind of dance card. In fact, dances were seen as something to attract nonmembers or get inactive teens active again. By the time my teens were going to dances, they needed bishop approval to go in the form of a dance card which needed a bishop interview almost like a TR.
So, the standards to be a member in good standing which people need to live up to have gotten a lot more demanding.
Our ward has taken to reminding us that we do not have to do all the things. Because there are so many things. Our stake has very frequent firesides where RMs report. It takes us one hour to drive to the stake center. So it’s 3.5 hours at least. Plus the 3 for normal church once travel and chatting are accounted for. That is 6.5 hours a Sunday. Our stake also has at least one giant weekend activity a month for the youth. Also an hours drive each way. Plus special meetings for women and girls, special trainings for various orgs. Stake conference takes all Saturday now. Add in the recommended monthly (at least) temple trips (1 hour 45 min each direction) and there is two out of the four weekends gone. Add in cleaning the church. Plus getting shamed by ward members when not enough people sign up to make food for yet another funeral, or walk a members dog three times a day while they are unwell, plus time serving in your calling. And of course, there are the numerous church wide broadcasts and firesides. The regional ones. The self reliance class. Ministering. Feeding the missionaries. Going out with the missionaries. For some folks like my spouse all these things are not optional. They are required. I’m tired of church taking not just my sundays which are not days of rest when it’s 6.5 hours long and my Saturdays too. I’d say we are certainly doing too much. But not winning. (Don’t forget family scripture study/prayer/ couple scripture study/pray /individual scripture study and prayer. Family
Home evening. Other service. It never ends.)
Thankyou, Anna, for reminding me of the days when gos doc classes were actually interesting, and ward activities were FUN, and we were more of a community instead of a corporation.
Interesting discussion. Going back to the OP’s prompts, (1) yes, the Church is taking more than it is giving back to local units and members. Some of that extracted surplus goes to general Church-wide programs (missionary work, temples, paying LDS bureaucrats, Seminary and Institute, the BYUs) and some goes to the never-going-to-be-used Hundred Billion Dollar Fund. As I have argued in an earlier post this week, the Church *underspends* on local units and programs.
(2) No, the Church doesn’t handle adaptation and responding to feedback well. Not at all. Scouting lasted a decade or two longer than it needed to. Cutting down to two-hour church on Sunday should have happened much earlier. It’s just a slow-responding institution. Senior LDS leadership is mentally living in the 1950s. LDS leadership can’t figure out how to reform the LDS gerontocracy at the top (all three FP members are older than the rapidly declining Mr. Trump, who is only 79 years old). Most of us could come up with a reform package in about 30 minutes.
The general membership just bumbles along writing tithing checks and not reflecting on any of this. One wonders what sort of event or development would shock a chunk of the membership into taking a step back. The MAGAfication of two-thirds of the US Church has certainly been a shock to the minority of progressives in the Church, many of whom have left or are stubbornly hanging on despite having lost much hope for the institution. The Church may be in a right-tilting death spiral. It sure feels like the Church as a movement or institution has peaked.
Thanks Ziff!
Hawkgrrl – I agree with you entirely on Citizens United and the damage it’s done to our country. The solutions are so obvious and yet nothing can be done. It’s beyond frustrating. As you know, I’m a Democrat, and I’ve noticed that rightwing propaganda has demonized the Democrats and insisted that they stand for things they don’t really stand for. I don’t know any Dems with political power who are pushing for UBI, which I think is what you meant by a free ride. Personally, I want a strong social safety net, but I don’t think UBI would work if it was widespread. I would favor increasing Social Security disability payments, and SS survivor benefits for orphans. In my opinion, universal UBI wouldn’t work unless there were price controls or a way to limit profits. We aren’t going to get a free ride by taxing billionaires, and I don’t believe that should be the goal. I also have really wanted to ask this question of someone who agrees that some regulations are necessary, but some regulations are out of control: Which category of regulations are out of control? And which regs specifically?
I thought of another thing the Church is requiring more of. They’re enforcing agreement with the Church’s teachings about sex and family. BYU professors now have to be completely orthodox about their beliefs; there’s no wiggle room for nuance about gay marriage among BYU professors anymore. Anna mentioned that more callings require temple recommends, and that’s also a way to enforce orthodox beliefs.
In the USA, most citizens seem to be on the side of MAGA or Republicans, at least on the state level. The states that are losing the most population are governed by Democrats (NY, CA) and the big population gainers are red states (TX, FL). This trend started well before 2025, so it is not due to Trump being back in the White House. The blue state governments are a powerful parasite that in many cases is completely out of control. Now, there are many problems with many red states too, but on balance the majority of the people are voting with their feet to get away from even worse.
If churches in the US are looked at in the same way, the LDS church is doing pretty well. Mainline protestant churches are losing 5% of their membership per year. Most of the fast growing congregations are independent evangelical churches, many of which are dependent upon one or a couple of charismatic and energetic pastors. The LDS church is basically flat on membership growth in the US, but that is much healthier than most other large churches. We also have not yet started down the doom-loop of below replacement birthrates.
I see the top church leaders streamlining many of the programs to make it easier on members to keep the ward running. Much of this is likely an effort to make the programs more equal to a much larger share of the church members. Building temples in smaller cities all over the world is part of this. My daughter’s friends moved to Utah and another city and both can now walk to a temple. We are still over 100 miles away, but an announced temple will eventually be much closer.
According to the US News’s state rankings, which ranks states according to Crime & Corrections, Economy, Education, Fiscal Stability, Health Care, Infrastructure, Natural Environment, and Opportunity, 19 out of the bottom 25 ranking states voted for Trump in 2024. Nine out of the 10 worst ranking states voted for Trump in 2024. There are 13 states that contribute more than $15,000 per capita to the GDP. Nebraska and Ohio are the only red states number among these top 13 contributors. The rest are blue states. According to the CATO Institute (which is more on your side than mine), red states have more convictions of government employees for public corruption than blue states. When it comes to the contest between blue and red states, blue states win across most categories. However, unlike you who revels in the failure of blue states (not really happening) and who have made hating California a professional sport and unhealthy obsession, I actually want red states to succeed and prosper and for MAGA voters to receive access to healthcare, retirement, and a living wage. You and the politicians you support actually hate the MAGA base, blame them if they are poor and rape victims, and want their suffering to continue so that you can continue to dupe them in aimlessly blaming some scary leftist boogeyman.
Expensive prices are a sign of economic growth and prosperity. Across the world, the most expensive countries, Switzerland, Norway, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, are among the most prosperous in the world with the highest per capita GDP. The least expensive countries in the world are the poorest and worst off. Many factors are driving individuals to move out of California and New York. These include the increase in remote work, the high cost of living, the lack of space to expand the building of housing, retirement, etc. Additionally, CA and NY have lower birth rates. A drop in migration rates is also driving population decline there. The question is, however, why do CA and NY have such large populations to begin with? Because of a long history of being engines of the US economy and centers of innovation and progress, which they continue to be.
Brad D.
You stated what I thought about all day, but didn’t have time to write. There’s only one thing I’d add. Instead of comparing states, if you compare counties, the stark contrast is even greater. Every red state has areas where the economic growth is hot. In most cases, it’s Democratic cities and counties that drive the state economies. It’s also a lot more complicated than just the economy. Healthcare, education, and the availability of social programs weigh into reasons to live in an area, move, or be happy.
Man! I keep hearing that people are leaving CA in droves but you couldn’t prove it by anyone on an LA County freeway…
I’ll add that this conservative fantasy about how droves of offended businesses and individuals are leaving liberal states in favor of “business-friendly” conservative states is really laughable and doesn’t show up in the numbers. Since 2019, California’s GDP has grown 40% as opposed to only an average of 15% for the rest of the country. Business expansion has grown between 50% and 70% since the mid-2000s. Conservative propagandists have been warning that businesses will leave New York City if taxes go up since the 1990s. I mean it’s quite obvious that since the 1990s New York City has just become this black hole of business growth…. oh wait, I mean they’ve had a 64% growth rate in the tech sector and now have reached a record of 4.2 million private sector jobs. Good lord, this idea that “libruhl” politics are stifling growth in CA and NYC has to be one of the most ridiculous ideas I have ever heard. I mean, is this some sort of joke? California is the fourth largest economy in the entire world. NYC has the largest metropolitan economy in the world. LA is number 3. Chicago, another conservative punching bag, is number 5. San Francisco is number 7. Oh no, some people are leaving California and New York City??? Yeah, well the population is aging and declining in other economic powerhouses as well, such as Japan, South Korea, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, France, the UK, China, and other places. It is simply a struggle of rising to the top. You run out of room to build, people get priced out, workers don’t have as many kids, and as the population ages, retirees sell their property for top dollar and move somewhere cheaper to live. You think that Texas and Florida have all the answers and are good at attracting businesses and providing cheap costs because they don’t believe in taxes or some garbage like that? OK, the cost of living has risen 20% in the past decade in Texas and has quintupled in Florida in the same period. “But why, I thought that Abbott and DeSantis were god-kings who could do no wrong?” Yeah, and the working-class taxes are higher in Texas and Florida than in California. That’s OK, though, because we all know that when we keep taxes low for the wealthy, their wealth just magically trickles down. Trickle down of wealth? Haven’t seen it much. Trickle down of stupidity? Oh yeah, big time.