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0 pointswegs5y ago0 comments

GOP isn't a person. It's a loose confederacy of people. For small government freedom-loving Republicans, go to e.g. parts of Texas.

Utah is a religious conservative. That's an entirely different sort of person. It's a demographic which, in many ways, would align better with Democrats, if not for a few wings of the DNC such as:

* Dawkins-toting militant atheist wing

* Pro-choice feminist wing

That's a big part of why Mitt Romney so often sides with Democrats on key votes, and takes so much flack from other parts of the GOP. He was also governor of Massachusetts, which is about as blue as you get. It take a special kind of Republican to win there.

I don't agree with a lot of what Utah Republicans stand for, but I don't see much hypocrisy there. It's pretty consistent:

* Against: Porn, anti-abortion, homosexuality, drinking, smoking, drugs

* For: Helping poor people (although with a complex split of private charity, church, and government), good education, clean strong neighborhoods, community, families, churches

COVID19 went a bit wonky, but with a few exceptions like that, it's mostly straight-line honest Mormon views.

Curiously, pre-Romney, who seems among the least corrupt politicians in government, Utah was represented by Orrin Hatch, who seemed to be among the most corrupt of the senators at the time.

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gremlinsinc5y ago

I live in Cedar City. Down here everybody hates Mitt. Few for the right reasons (like his 47% comments about the middle class/low class), most because this is Trump country and he's not one of "them".

Church has been out of session a long time so a lot of the Mormons (I'm exmo btw) I guess flocked to QAnon as a replacement for religion during the pandemic?

Somebody's grandpa was checking me out at the register at a small grocer and said "did you see it" all excitedly about the Trump parades going around town. Not like I could miss them circling the entire city for two weeks straight - that being just the first day of it.

There's some romney conservatives I'm sure in Utah, but there's so many Trump ones now too that I don't even think Mitt will win the primary in 2026.

If he really was bi-partisan though why not support ending the filibuster? I mean if he wants to deal with democrats and be a cross-the-aisle kind of politician he kind of needs to offer an olive leaf. Him and Murkowski could do a lot together as conservatives with a new plan to keep the party conservative but still reach across for some social progress.

Like the stimulus plan and ending the filibuster would give him big rapport with a lot of senate democrats who'd be more willing to co-sponsor bills with him. That's how we could fix Washington, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

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