Latter-day Ballots
Maybe this speaks to the pervasive political power of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Joe Biden, the Democrats and even retired Sen. Orrin Hatch stumping for Trump— are all going after the LDS vote. That may make sense, considering what an impact the church had on defeating California's gay marriage initiative in 2008 and the Equal Rights Amendment in 1975. The church claims more than 16 million members and seems to know how to mobilize them, mostly on social issues. In 2016, Donald Trump got 61 percent of the LDS votes, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. So, the question is just how much of a social issue is the presidential election? Hatch co-chairs a little group called Latter-day Saints for Trump, although 200 members protested in Arizona, and in a letter said Trump "is the antithesis of so much the Latter-day Saints community believes," according to KJZZ.org. Still, Vice President Mike Pence was giddy about his upcoming debate in Salt Lake City, emphasizing the city twice during a rally. You know—because Utah is largely white and conservative.
GOP Views at Odds
Utah's GOP is forever conflicted about what a Republican is. Take, for example, Utah's two U.S. senators—both Republican, of course, and both different as night and day. Mike Lee has spent the past few weeks defending the president's rant over shower-head pressure and then continuing to rail against the Google search engine, which seemingly didn't bring up "Crooked Hillary" when conservatives searched for, uh, something, before the 2016 election. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney is being called a liberal because he defends vote-by-mail and criticizes the president for fawning over dictators and not taking the China threat seriously. Oh, and the Tribune kind of buried the lead on China and Romney. Its front-page headline read, "Romney says world needs to awaken to China's threat." In fact, it is the United States that needs to wake up. "As America retreats and China pushes forward, why the nations of the world will line up behind China," Romney says.
Zoom Gone Boom
Sometimes, technology does save the day. The little town of Hideout has some rethinking to do now that a mismanaged Zoom meeting scuttled its plans to annex 655 acres for a huge mixed-use development. Park City and Summit County, on the other hand, may not have to go to court to prevent what they call a land grab by some well-connected developers. According to the Park Record, the town council had started two simultaneous Zoom meetings, and from there, things went haywire. There's more to come after a special session of the Legislature.
