The worst of times

Regarding the Capitol Hill situation with Trump supporters yesterday, I think the first point we should acknowledge is that we as members of the Church support the rule of law, and these people broke several laws, so they should be punished. They definitely will be. The FBI is already involved, and the people who invaded the Capitol building will go to jail, in some cases for a long time.

It is worth noting that at least some of the people involved definitely were NOT Trump supporters, and may have been Antifa/BLM supporters. Here are some articles you may not have seen on SOME of the people who invaded the Capitol who were apparently not Trump supporters:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jan/6/xrvision-firm-claims-antifa-infiltrated-protesters/

But conservative members of the Church must face the fact that even if there were some Antifa false flag infiltrators, it is simply a fact that the majority of the bad actors WERE Trump supporters. And this is not good by any standard.

Conservative members of the Church have always had an uneasy relationship with the populist elements of the Trump message, and in this case we can see why. I discussed that in detail in this recent post here:

It is clear that the Trump populist message is not in line in many ways with what many LDS church members believe on important issues. But I would point out that the Democrat party is not in line with what most LDS Church members believe on even more issues. And Libertarians (and I say this as a liberty Republican myself) support many things we as Church members do not believe in. So, LDS Church members often feel politically homeless. With the Republican party going through yet another political evolution, LDS members may end up feeling more homeless than ever.

What the media will NOT be talking about, however, is WHY the 73 million-plus Trump supporters voted for him and why they are so upset with the results. The first step toward peace is sympathy, and Trump supporters are getting very little of that these days. This is a dangerous position for progressives and anti-Trump people to take. Trump supporters feel they are being backed against a wall with no escape. They are mocked by all of the dominant groups in society, and if they try to express their feelings on Facebook or Twitter they are censored. I would recommend, at least as a practical measure, that the political winners try better to understand where Trump supporters are coming from.

There are significant claims of voter fraud that have not been addressed. It is simply not good enough to say the claims are all conspiracy theories. When you look at the evidence, there are claims in six states that should be looked at. I am not saying the claims are all valid, but the political process does not allow for these claims to be studied in detail.

Conservatives are now facing a future where Democrats may have gotten away with widespread voter fraud and will continue to use these tactics for the foreseeable future. The legality and appropriateness of widespread use of mail-in ballots needs to be discussed. Do we really believe this is how people should vote? The process for monitoring mail-in ballots and assuring their validity was extremely poor in many if not most states. Remember that Republicans can do mail-in ballot fraud too, so we will be heading to a future where all elections are called into question unless we address this issue.

Sadly, part of being a conservative member of the Church is the inevitable sense that things will fall apart eventually, and personally I have been feeling this way since the 2000 election and Bush v. Gore. And of course 9/11 in 2001 solidified that feeling. As I re-read the Book of Mormon this year, I felt that I was feeling the same things that Mormon and Moroni felt as they watched their civilization devolve into chaos. We are getting a little taste of that happening before our eyes. The good news is that we know the ending will be happy, with the Savior returning and wiping away the tears from every face. But in the meantime, it seems like the world is spinning out of control before us, and that is not a good feeling at all.

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About Geoff B.

Geoff B graduated from Stanford University (class of 1985) and worked in journalism for several years until about 1992, when he took up his second career in telecommunications sales. He has held many callings in the Church, but his favorite calling is father and husband. Geoff is active in martial arts and loves hiking and skiing. Geoff has five children and lives in Colorado.

17 thoughts on “The worst of times

  1. The number of people who believe the Book of Mormon yet seem to think that secret combinations don’t exist nowadays (and Mormon just wasted his time engraving about them in the Plates) is surprisingly high.

    President Eyring once said that whenever he meets someone new he assumes they are in serious trouble and he is right more than half the time. I sometimes think we ought to paraphrase for politics that whenever we meet someone in power we should assume they have taken oaths in a secret combination — and I wonder what percentage of the time we would be right…

    …because I guarantee it isn’t 0%.

  2. Thank you, Geoff B. for being one of the few able to understand and articulate the experience of so many with calm and clarity. Please continue to use your voice for good and truth. It is needed for those of us trying to get our sea legs under us so we can also stand.

  3. Yesterday was a well planned and executed false flag operation complete with duping a handful of Trump supporters into participating. Many of the individuals who led the assault have already been identified as being participants in other ANTIFA and BLM violent protests. I had friends in DC who were eyewitnesses and report that things are not as the media is reporting. The people behind this needed an event that would give them the ability to make seemingly true, but false accusations. They planned it and executed it well. This was a Reichstag event and the political repression of all opposition will follow shortly. Freedom of thought, religion, assembly and speech are now officially dead in the United States of America. Welcome to the new totalitarianism. Enjoy your chains!!

  4. Brent, I think we are losing our freedoms in many ways, and I have written extensively about that on M*. However, I know people who were there in DC and who were near the Capitol, and they saw hundreds if not thousands of Trump supporters, legitimate Trump supporters who they had seen at other Trump rallies, rush toward the Capitol yelling that it was “the people’s building” and that they would take it over. So, I continue to believe that the majority of the people involved were actual Trump supporters. I wish that were not the case, but I think we need to face that fact. Based on past interactions, I suppose this will not be convincing to you, but other readers should know that it is simply not factually accurate to claim that ALL of the people involved were Antifa/BLM agitators. Personally, I believe some were, but some were not.

  5. I disagree. I have watched videos of many buses loaded with what clearly looked like ANTIFA unloading near the Capitol Building. I also have reports of my friends who were there and watched it happen. This was a false flag event. My friends watched as people were evacuated from the building before the assault began. They also watched as the police removed barricades and allowed the assault to continue up the stairs into the building. I give the enemy credit for planning and execution, but whatever Trump supporters there may have been tag alongs and swept up in the rush. In any case, Trump did not order this and to accuse him of such is to lie! In the meantime, here are my predictions. 1. Trump may be forcibly removed from office prior to Jan 20. 2. Trump will be murdered by the left. This is to make certain he cannot return and as a lesson to others. 3. Once in office, Biden will initiate a series of orders that will strip almost all freedom from us. He will do the bidding of his Chinese masters. He also will not remain in office long. In fact, he may resign within 30 days citing health. Kamala Harris will become president and she is all too eager to do the bidding of the violent left. 4. With both the Senate and House in leftist control, the Equality Act will be one of the first bills passed. This will strip us of religious freedom by making it illegal to cite religious belief as a defense in court. The Hobby Lobby decision vs Obamacare would have never turned out in favor of Hobby Lobby if the Equality Act had been in force. Further, I predict that once that evil act is the law, you will see lawsuit after lawsuit against Christian churches charging them with discrimination for not recognizing same-sex marriage. Churches will be forced to close, change their doctrine, or see the government destroy them. The LDS Church will not escape this. 5. The 2nd Amendment will be history. It won’t be an outright repeal, but Biden plans to tax guns and ammunition to the point you can’t afford either. 6. There will be vaccine passports required so that you can leave your home. You won’t be able to work, do business, travel, or anything without showing you have been inoculated with whatever vaccine the government is pushing. 7. At some point during this, there will be a trigger event that will finally cause the rebellion needed to overthrow this darkness. When that happens, it will make the Civil War look like a Sunday picnic. Biden will call upon the UN for help, and foreign troops–Muslim, Chinese, and Russian–will be brought in to put down the rebellion. 8. Perhaps as much as 1/2 of our military will go over to the rebellion, particularly if foreign troops are brought in. The other half will fight the population and the half that has rebelled. There will be bloodshed like this world has never seen. 8. The PRC will go after Taiwan because Biden will not help them. 9. North Korea will invade South Korea because Biden will not help them. 10. Japan, seeing those actions, will kneel before the Chinese throne. 11. During this chaos, Europe will find itself besieged by the large numbers of Muslims who have been invited in. 12. Russia will probably, in the midst of this, move to re-occupy the republics in Europe who broke away. Ukraine will fall to Russian aggression. 13. Israel will face a rising Muslim army preparing to invade and destroy the country, but the US won’t be able to help them. 14. Eventually, the rebel forces in the US will win, because there truly are more of us than there are of them, and one thing Mao got right, in a revolution, unless you control the countryside, cities are a death trap. These are not prophecies for I am no prophet. But I have read extensively and am conversant with Chinese military planning. I am conversant with the plans of the Globalist Cabal–Whore of all the Earth, Babylon. I have listened to what the left has threatened and demanded for years. They have not changed in the 40 plus years I have been watching. I am conversant with how communist takeovers work and we have just seen one, though they won’t call themselves that. The only thing that will fully resolve this is the coming of the Son of God, may He come soon!

  6. Brent, what you say may be possible, but to be consistent I have to remind myself and everybody that Trump’s election was heralded as the End of the Republic, too. As was Obama’s. Your scenario is certainly possible, but I urge you, as I urged my panicked friends on the the left in January 2017, to at least keep in your calculations that you might be wrong. To be clear, this is not me attacking you or calling you names or discounting anything you’re warning about. It’s just me asking that you contemplate the possibility that business will continue and life will go on regardless of who’s the president. For example, how are you prepared to modify your scenario if Trump doesn’t die? Or, for that matter, Biden?

  7. I served in the USAF for 10 years. As part of that training and service, I was required to study the nations, groups, and ideologies that were hostile to the United States. One of those was Marxism/Communism with a focus on how these revolutionary groups get started, what their tactics were, what their strategic goals were, and so forth. As part of that, I closely studied several revolutionary groups operating around the world. In every case where the revolution succeeded in overthrowing the established government, one of the tasks of the revolutionaries was to eliminate–murder–any political leaders they perceived could prove troublesome in the future. There has been talk of Trump running again in 2024 if Biden should win. The Whore saw how badly Trump upset plans with his win in 2016. They will make certain he can’t do it again and the only way to do that is to kill him. As for Biden, he has openly talked of stepping aside. If you have been paying attention, the groundwork has already been laid and has been done so by Pelosi herself with her 25th Amendment committee. It would not take much effort to show that Biden is a senile old fool! He provides plenty of evidence of that on almost a daily basis. That would be more than sufficient grounds to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him. (Honestly, I can’t believe I have to explain this to anyone.) Therefore, based on my knowledge and experience, I think I am on fairly solid ground with my concern that the enemy will kill Trump after he leaves the White House and that they will remove Lyin’ Joe quickly. In fact, I think if they offer him and his criminal family enough money, he will voluntarily step aside.

  8. One other thing, I am a student of history. You may not be aware of this, but Hitler pretty much laid out his plans in his now banned book, Mein Kampf. One seemingly consistent characteristic of bad people who seek power is that they inevitably feel the need to announce what they intend to do as if it gives them some sort of power trip. Equally, interesting is that no one tends to believe them at the time. Then everyone acts surprised when the bad guy/gal does exactly what they said they would do. Reminds me of a quote that goes something like this: “Those who do not learn the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them.” The leftists have never made a secret of what they want to do and what price they are willing to exact to accomplish it. That is why Stalin killed so many people. Mao also. Then there was the Khmer Rouge–Cambodia–see Killing Fields. There is also the conflict between the Hutus and the Tutsi in Rwanda. The Hutus made very clear what they would do to the Tutsi if they had the chance, but no one other than the Tutsi believed them. The result was the death of some 500,000 to 1,000,000 people. The exact number will never be known. So, being observant and a good student of history, when a movement says they will do this and so if they achieve power, I expect them to do exactly what they say they will do if they do achieve power. History seems to support me on that.

  9. Yes, I am in fact aware of all that. But I ask again: what happens if Trump doesn’t die? Are you prepared for your prediction (possible though it may be) to be incorrect?

  10. You seem to have an odd fascination with trying to prove that I am wrong in my projections. Let’s get something straight, shall we? I have told you I have studied the enemy for many years. Sun Tzu and Clausewitz both state that to win at war, one must know the enemy and know yourself. One interesting capability I have is the ability to see things through the other person’s eyes. When I was in the military, our intel folks noted this and sought to have my transfer to intelligence from the job I was doing. I didn’t do so, but it was intriguing. What this means, though, is that I can see this situation as the enemy does and my analysis takes that into account. Will I be right and correct? I don’t know, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that these evil men and women have murder in their hearts and would be very happy to cause Trump’s death because it will remove him as a future factor to deal with. Therefore, knowing what I know, I will state again that there is a very high probability that they will at least endeavor to kill him, and a nearly as high probability they will succeed. Of course, God may intervene. Why would God intervene? You do not impress me as someone who appreciates what Donald Trump has been able to do. He has almost single-handedly reversed much of what was causing the decline of the United States. Yes, he crude, bombastic, and a bit of a blowhard. But he is also not afraid to confront the enemy. Far too many Latter-day Saints focus on the earlier Trump who cheated on and divorced several wives. Yet these same members ignore that for nearly 16 or more years, he has been a changed man. I, for one, believe men and women can change if they want to and that God can and does forgive them, but I find far too many LDS members who hold Trump’s past transgressions against him. These individuals will not forgive Trump, but they want God to forgive them. There is a word for such people. The word is a hypocrite. I wonder if you are one of them.

    As for Biden, part of my analysis is based on his own words for did he not say that he would gladly step aside if he contracted some disease? Add to this the fecklessness of the Democrats and their already existing 25th Amendment committee and one can see that the apparatus to remove a senile Biden is already present and ready to be put to use. Why, then, do you challenge me on this assessment? The evidence is plain. Is it certain? No, but based on the power lust in the Democrat Party, I say it is highly probable.

    I would further point out that in the election of 2016 the names of Jesus Christ were absent from the ballot as were the names of the First Presidency and the Apostles. The public has presented a slate of individuals who probably were not stomachable by some LDS people, but with all his warts, Trump was preferable to Hillary. I did vote for Romney when he ran against Obama. I held my nose and did so because the stench of Obama was even worse. Sadly, Romney was not a fighter and got his head handed to him. And now, Romney seems to be currying favor with the enemy. Such a feckless individual. I am glad I didn’t vote for him as a senator and if he chooses to run again as a candidate in Utah I will not vote for him. He would gladly compromise with evil and such an individual should not be trusted with high office.

    Now, why don’t you explain why you think I am wrong.

  11. Brent, I think Lattertarian is merely asking you to consider the possibility that you may be wrong– or that some of your very specific (and oddly so) predictions may be wrong. I think s/he may also be asking you which predictions you think necessary and dependent.

    I will say this much. Based on your missives above it is clear you do not understand the US political system. And if you are so certain of your predictions why are you not right now acting in open rebellion?

  12. Thank you, PaulM. I distinctly recall conversations almost exactly like this in early 2017 when the #resistance was in full howl. There were plenty of people, people I thought I knew, people who had been my friends for decades, who dove deep down the fear and loathing rabbithole. And once down there in that fever-swamp they seethed and screamed and were utterly terrified. Trump was going to start World War III. Trump was going to wall off America. Trump was going to genocidally oppress (fill-in-the-blank). Trump’s supporters were brainwashed brownshirts. Our way of life was over, America was dead, and all that remained was insurrection. It was all there.

    And people thought it was going to happen *immediately*. As though overnight construction on The Wall would begin, and in the first year the Great Wall of America would be complete, with watchtowers and razorwire and the whole shebang. As though overnight withdrawal from the Paris Accord would mean immediate and irreversible ecological catastrophe. There was going to be genocide. And even those who survived would be living in The Handmaid’s Tale.

    Those predictions were, to put it charitably, exaggerated. And I had conversations similar to this one, trying to talk people off the ledge. What if the wall doesn’t get built? I would ask. What if pulling out of the Paris Accord doesn’t make a difference? What if no action gets taken to turn America into a polygarapist theocracy? What if those things don’t happen?

    In short, are you prepared to be wrong? And what would need to happen in order for you to decide your worst fears *aren’t* coming to pass? In 2017, it was the wall. What if the wall doesn’t get built this year? What if it doesn’t even get started this year? Is that enough to get you to take a breath and overcome your fear? And if some piece of the Predictions of Doom doesn’t come to pass, are you prepared to re-evaluate the rest of them? Trying to get people to reacquire some perspective cost me some friends. We’ll see if they can be civil again now that Trump’s on his way out of office.

    Brent, I’m not saying you’re wrong. For you to think I’m saying that is to misread what I’ve written. I’ll restate the crux of my response: while what you say may be possible, are you prepared to be wrong about one or more pieces of it, and which pieces would need to not happen in order for you to come down off the ledge? Suppose Trump doesn’t die in the next couple of years. Suppose Biden isn’t replaced by Harris during this term. If either of those things doesn’t happen, are you prepared to re-evaluate your fears?

    And more important, and to return to PaulM’s point, what are you really prepared to do about it if you’re right? Because frankly you sound about two breaths away from climbing onto a water tower with a rifle. And you wouldn’t be the first. And everybody needs to have a good long think before deciding it’s come to that.

  13. OK, you gentlemen have had great fun demanding I answer your question of what I would do if I were wrong. Before we go further, why don’t you answer this question? What are you going to do if I am right? Oh, and by the way, the actions of Google and Facebook to eliminate Parler seem to support my understanding of how leftists operate when they have nothing to fear.

  14. Many Americans thought our republic was lost when Andrew Jackson became president, but the republic survived.

    Many Americans thought our republic was lost when Barack Obama became president, but the republic survived.

    Many Americans thought our republic was lost when Donald Trump became president, but the republic survived.

    For me, it is important to uphold and sustain our constitutional and electoral processes. I believe Mr. Trump won a fair election in 2016 and I sustained him as President of the United States. I believe Mr. Biden won a fair election in 2020 and I will sustain him as our next president. I regret Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the election outcome and remain in office contrary to the will of the people and the election results.

    We will have another election in four years. Our republic is safe. Life goes on.

    I wish Mr. Biden health and vigor and vitality. I want him to serve for his full term.

    If there is evidence of election fraud, it is too late to affect this election. But such evidence, if it exists, may be shared with prosecutors and individual malefactors may be dealt with under the law. But honestly, based on what I have seen, I am not convinced the evidence exists or that it is compelling — but prosecutors and juries can decide those matters.

  15. Ji, you’re right to bring up past presidential panics. I’d add the elections of FDR, Johnson, Reagan, and G.W. Bush. Man, remember Broward county and hanging chads?

    Brent, it saddens me that you’re so unwilling to exercise a little humility here, though it entertains me that you’d dodge my question by trying to turn it around. I get it, your Infowars playbook demands that you stay on offense and never have to explain your thinking, and I get that there’s a big satisfying dopamine hit that comes with being “right” on the internet. But it saddens me that you’d be so transparent about it. I thought you were an expert. Or something. You’ve certainly bragged about it enough. No good strategist only plans for one contingency. You know that.

    What I’m prepared to do is what I’m already doing. I moved my focus years ago away from national politics, which neither I nor you can affect in any measurable way, to the politics of my city and county. I’m involved in politics at the local level. I walked neighborhoods for the last school board election. I attend County Supervisor meetings and speak during public comment. I belong to local activist groups who watch how local government gets and spends money, and I speak out when I feel it’s warranted. I own guns (how many? … more than two) and maintain both a financial and food supply stockpile (something we as members of the church have been warned to do for half a century now). I actively serve in a ward calling, attend my church meetings, try to keep up with Come, Follow Me, and pray daily that all those who fear will find comfort and courage. I can sleep when the wind blows, and I can do that because I’m in a position to help my community survive and move forward no matter what happens in faraway places that think they control things.

    Your turn, Brent. No more goalpost shifting, General Armchair. What are you doing, and what are you prepared to do? I look forward to finding an answer with you.

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