The Senate contest between incumbent Senator Mike Lee and Independent challenger Evan McMullin is still a no-brainer, even after their October 17, 2022 debate at Utah Valley University.
The Senate contest between incumbent Senator Mike Lee and Independent challenger Evan McMullin is still a no-brainer, even after their October 17 debate at Utah Valley University.
Not because Lee logged at least one 14-hour day with White House counsel John Eastman, the insurrectionist attorney who helped plot Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power.
Not because that action led directly to the Jan. 6th attack on our Capitol . . .
Not because Lee has been largely ineffective in moving legislation through the Senate for the benefit of the country and the state of Utah, opting instead to be a principal obstructor of legislation . . .
Not because of what one could argue is an ideological instead of principled approach to leadership . . .
Not because of his relentless downplaying, by his own admission, of the democratic values that underpin our Republic . . .
Not because during the re-election bid of Donald Trump, Lee compared the sitting president to Captain Moroni, a beloved hero of bravery and rectitude to Latter-day Saints, stemming from the Book of Mormon.
No . . .
. . . The contest is a no-brainer because Lee is divisive, and Utahns are tired of the rancor and the division to which he has been leading the charge, both in the Senate and in the Beehive State ever since he voted for McMullin in the 2016 presidential election before flipping into Trumpland where he has remained. …
My family of birth has been ripped to shreds the last six years because of the divisive rhetoric, the chaos and arguably the fascist behavior of Trump who is likely to go down in history as our worst president ever. That the Republican leadership, including Lee, has largely been either supportive of Trump or silent in the face of the then sitting president’s inciting of political violence and his lies is doubly concerning.
My 10 sisters have been pitted against each other; my brother and I pitted against half of those sisters and my parents, including my ailing father, a retired Brigham Young University professor who died during the pandemic in 2020.
There are cousins who won’t talk to each other anymore. Sleepless nights, and anguished days for virtually all of us. It’s been tribal, corrosive politics on steroids. Single-issue voting and raw tribalism for spite in a feeble attempt to slake our anger and, more importantly, our reconcile with our deep-seated grief.
My family is not an outlier family. It is typical, especially of LDS families in Utah. Mike Lee has been at the forefront of the division in Utah and beyond. He has taken his notion of “constitutionalism” to such an extreme that he is now, I believe, a threat to the very constitution he ostensibly touts and which, in the form of a paper copy, he uses as a prop pulling from his coat pocket.
Lee has become the very thing he has claimed to despise, and it would be sad if it weren’t so sickening. Indeed, he has become the flashpoint and in part the cause of division and chaos in our lives.
The only way to counter this division and rancor epitomized by Lee’s behavior of late is to vote for the conservative independent Evan McMullin. He is the only one who can possibly dislodge Lee from our turbulent political and social, including from our religious lives where Lee claims church membership.
Republicans and Democrats are not the only tribes out there in this election. Even independents or unaffiliated voters in this state and in the United States of America do not have the corner on tribalism.
There is another tribe: the Tribe of freedom-loving American voters who can come together next month to end the division and chaos.
The members of our merry Tribe of Utah Voters have much in common: We want our children to be safe in school. We want good jobs that help build back up the long-lost middle-class. We want affordable and accessible health care. We want the opportunity to succeed. We want a strong military and a strong justice department to help keep the rule of law in place. We want equity, equality and justice for all.
We are sick and tired of the division in our families and in our country.
Please consider a vote for Evan McMullin, which is a vote for a new day in our domestic and national lives.
This commentary originally appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 21, 2022.
