Matt (00:00.92)
Hello everybody and welcome to the Latter Day Lens with Sean and Matt and our special guest host this week, David. David would-

Shawn (00:08.509)
Wow, Matt, you prepped that little intro. That was great. You didn't fumble at all like last few times. That's good.

Matt (00:11.854)
No, no. Hey, thank you. Thank you. David, would you like to introduce yourself at all? How would you like our listeners to know who you are?

David (00:16.348)
Ha ha.

David (00:20.845)
I don't have any qualification to be here. I have enjoyed listening to your podcast. And once upon a time, Matt Miles' family and mine shared a community out in Kansas for the better part of a decade. So back when we barely knew anything about what we were doing, we have a little bit of history.

Matt (00:23.79)
You

Shawn (00:23.955)
You

Shawn (00:36.903)
That qualifies you.

Matt (00:37.048)
That's right.

Matt (00:40.845)
Yeah.

The only qualification you need to be on this podcast is I have to love you so much and David definitely fits the bill. David's one of the best people I've ever met in my entire life. And I hope listeners, you guys will love him as much as I do. Okay. So Sean, I'm opening the mail bag. One of our listeners is coming after you this week.

Shawn (00:52.915)
nice.

Shawn (01:01.831)
Yeah, they should because that last topic that you impromptu brought was really actually a I've been thinking about it nonstop. So I'm glad I'm glad the listeners were too.

Matt (01:10.358)
Okay, so this listener says, Sean objects to using the word racism to describe a subconscious racial bias.

Shawn (01:17.331)
No, I don't. No, I don't. You want to nip it in the bud real quick before you finish it? Because no, I don't. I do not object to that. did not back then. What I objected to was you suggesting that all people are racist. So all people have lost control to their subconscious racial bias. That's what I have an issue with. I have no problem saying this. Okay, go ahead.

Matt (01:35.598)
I'm going to finish reading the question or the thing the listener said. I like when you try to defend that you're not racist. Okay. It says, and I understand that one reason we use the word racism is because it reflects the experience of people of color. When someone, okay.

Shawn (01:51.379)
Okay, I'm gonna stop you there too. You can't just jump to the conclusion that just because someone fits into a box that you think they fit in, that they have a common experience. That in and of itself is, I'm not gonna call it racist, but it's bigoted, it's bigoted. So like, I've talked to, I don't know, man, like some people live in areas where there's a lot of diversity and some people don't, and I do. And I talk to many, many friends.

Matt (02:06.712)
Go on, go on, what is it? okay.

Shawn (02:20.467)
And this doesn't reflect their opinion. They don't say that I've lived a life and racism has been my constant experience or that even if they've experienced it at all. So I have issue with that too.

Matt (02:29.794)
Have you, are you familiar with the word microaggression? okay. I don't know, Sean. I don't know what the words that people, so.

Shawn (02:32.999)
Yeah, of course.

David (02:37.147)
That sounded a little bit aggressive. I'm just kidding.

Matt (02:39.662)
So are you, would you say that your friends who are racial minorities would, if they, if you were to talk to them about microaggression, they'd say, I've never experienced anything like that in my life.

Shawn (02:50.845)
Some of them have said, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. That's what some of them have said. A microaggression.

Matt (02:55.394)
But none of them have ever said, I've experienced this in my life.

Shawn (02:59.603)
I mean, on, they've all experienced, like my friend Jacob, he's experienced people being rude to him, people being mean to him, and he doesn't interpret it as they are racist towards me. He interprets as, people sometimes get in a bad mood, and they took it out on me, not because of my skin tone, but because I'm a human being next to them.

Matt (03:19.564)
Okay, but Sean, I live in a community where 100 % people will be rude to others because of the race that they have, or they will assume things.

Shawn (03:27.475)
I don't know how you could possibly know the heart and intention of every single person in your community. That's a crazy statement. Crazy statement, Matt.

Matt (03:38.34)
okay. Well, I'm just telling you what my friends who are racial minorities tell me, that they experience what we would call microaggressions, that they experience being treated differently because of their race. Not all the time, not every time.

Shawn (03:51.697)
And that sucks, and that sucks, and I would definitely call it, I don't care if it's, like the listener, he listens, here, I'll read what he says, because it's good. He says, when someone experiences discrimination, the intentions of the person behind it are just not that important, whether it's conscious or unconscious, doesn't matter, which I totally agree. So your friends, when they experience discrimination, that's wrong. And if that's racist, let's call it out. Point out the person that's being racist and who's discriminated against.

And I'm with you arm in arm. Let's go fight against that. Let's go call that out. But you can't just say there's this magical like, like invisible. Everyone thinks they're everyone's right. No, it's not. Yeah, I did. And I, it's, it's said that I am a black person who loves black people more than white people. That's what it said. It said, I have a bias towards black people in the positive, in the positive.

Matt (04:28.77)
There is Sean. Sean, Sean, did you take the test? Did you take the test? Okay, what did it say?

No, it didn't say you're a black person. What did it say?

David (04:40.445)
Thank

Matt (04:45.336)
Ha, ha, ha. So that means you dislike white people. Racist. See, you are racist. You have a preference for one race over the other.

Shawn (04:50.619)
Yeah, that's right. That's right. I'm a racist because I hate white people. Okay.

David (04:54.302)
I didn't get the quiz. I just found my own. I just went on Google to see if I'm racist and I found one that says I'm not racist. So that's really... I stopped taking the quizzes after that one.

Shawn (04:56.403)
but it's the stupidest test.

Shawn (05:04.859)
Yes! Good job, David!

Matt (05:04.942)
You

You have to take the right test.

Shawn (05:09.235)
Your theory is shot Matt. yes that's right.

David (05:14.075)
I have to take the right quiz that tells everybody that they're racist to bring it above. Yeah. Alternative tests out there. If you need to take an alternative test to get a more comprehensive look at things. I don't, I don't disbelieve that.

Matt (05:16.206)
Hold on. Hold on. I'm going to pause this real fast.

Matt (05:29.73)
Yeah, but project implicit project implicit is scientifically reliable, right? I'm not saying I'm not saying take the BuzzFeed, which Harry Potter house do you belong to? Which new kids on the block? Do you love the most? I'm not

Shawn (05:35.503)
Okay, okay, hang on.

Shawn (05:45.491)
Here's, you made me read that book that you said some of our friends would be blind spots. So I started reading it and right out the gate, it starts saying things like this. Scientists have confirmed, scientists have confirmed the existence of blind spots that guides our behavior, which makes me think the scientists are idiots when they say statements like that. Give me a break. Science isn't about confirming things. It's about creating theories and things and finding some evidence for things.

Matt (05:49.592)
Blind spot.

Matt (06:07.886)
Stop it! Stop it!

Shawn (06:14.941)
that then get debunked five years later. That's exactly what science is.

Matt (06:17.174)
Okay, so you're telling me, Sean, that people don't have blind spots, that people don't have implicit preferences. Okay, okay.

Shawn (06:21.915)
No, I think they do. No, they do. No, they do. Yeah, but not to the point that you are saying or the book is saying where we are so out of control. Like all of this goes against scripture. Like I've got 15 scriptures to bring up here. It's all about agency. It's all about God endowing us with the ability to know right from wrong and giving us the accountability to choose. This goes against, this is in the face of every scripture in our panem.

Matt (06:46.52)
Tone. If you can't choose unless you're enticed to one side or the other. Okay, so then.

Shawn (06:53.555)
That's right, but if you don't know that you're being enticed to one side, then you have no agency. Then you have no, and we are put on this planet to be enticed, know that enticement, and then choose. That is agency.

Matt (06:58.146)
then you're gonna default to something. That's right.

Matt (07:08.468)
Agency, as the scripture says, to act for ourselves and not to be acted upon. Right? So if we just go with our natural man implicit tendencies, we should expect that those are going to be not the best thing to do. Our natural tendencies entices to things that are not the best outcome.

Shawn (07:14.055)
Right?

Shawn (07:21.873)
Right, but my content

Shawn (07:26.641)
Right, right, right, but my contention is that we are aware of those temptations. It's not that we have this, there's no, Matt, we can't be held accountable. Like here, here I'll give you an example. Revelation 3.5, 3.15. God says, I know thy works, that thou art neither caught nor cold. I would that thou art cold, nor hot or cold. So then because thou art lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth. In other words, that middle ground of lukewarmness, and there's another verse that I love that talks about in,

Matt (07:31.191)
Now.

Shawn (07:56.551)
Elijah comes to the children of Israel and he says, how long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, then follow him, but if Baal, then follow him. In other words, when you are in a neutral area, the Lord commands against it. He doesn't like that when we are indifferent or not thinking about the choices in front of us.

Matt (08:17.228)
that be because our natural inclination is to do the wrong thing when we're not thinking about it?

Shawn (08:22.983)
I guess that could be, I'm open to that, but I don't, but the fact that we're, I think the commandment is you think about it, right? Analyze the temptations that we feel so that you can exercise your agency and make choices. This idea of blind spot says, it's basically, Matt, it's evangelicalism. It is Calvinism that says, yes it is. What it says is God has predetermined, Matt, that you will behave in certain ways and you have no choice in the matter.

Matt (08:41.87)
No, it's not. No.

No!

Shawn (08:52.209)
It is Calvinism.

Matt (08:52.404)
No, it doesn't say you have no choice. That's the whole point, Sean. The whole point is that if you recognize that you have an implicit bias, you can take steps in your life to fight against that. That you...

Shawn (08:56.125)
That was the book.

Shawn (09:03.751)
That was the second point. The first point was you all have an implicit bias that you don't know about. And so your natural man is this hidden monster within you. It's the natural, it's the, it's the, do they call it? in that evangelicalism? No, we believe that. No, we, I agree with that. No, what they call it is the original sin of Adam.

Matt (09:17.487)
The natural man is an enemy to God? That's what I call him.

Sean, when we were talking last week, did you have any idea that you have an implicit bias against white people?

David (09:26.013)
you

Shawn (09:30.085)
I don't that joke is that test is a joke.

David (09:31.441)
Hahaha.

Matt (09:34.1)
Interesting, interesting. Is it because you didn't like the results? If it had said you have no bias at all? Would you have said it's not a joke? You'd say, it's a good test.

Shawn (09:42.995)
Would you be surprised if I said I took it four times and every time the outcome was different?

Matt (09:47.562)
No, I wouldn't be surprised about that at all. Because after you take it one time, then you know what they're doing in the test. And so you know how to manipulate the test and how to like mess with the test. When my students do it, I would say about 50 % of them get the same answer every single time. And then there's about 50 % that like, like if you kind of figure it out, try to game it, you can game it. But

Shawn (09:48.883)
Well then, how is that possibly scientific?

Shawn (09:59.219)
Well, that seems like a flawed test.

Shawn (10:12.083)
So when I researched the test, I found about 50 % online very positive reviews and I found 50 % debunking it.

Matt (10:19.096)
Well, that's why we talk about it in class. But whether or not the test is good at telling you what your implicit bias is, think it's pretty, I think that I would say science has confirmed that people have implicit biases.

Shawn (10:25.371)
It's not.

Shawn (10:33.607)
Yeah, but I believe that the bias that we have, yes, of course, man, we're born into this world, we know nothing, we're babies, we're little dumb dumb babies. And of course we start getting influenced by stimuli, right? And of course that starts to develop what we think. But I think God has given us the ability to start to analyze and understand and comprehend and then make choices, right? By the time we're of the age of accountability and

David (10:34.853)
And that's what we've come to.

David (10:47.334)
So, that's it for today.

Shawn (11:02.353)
And that is the key there. The difference of that book is, no, we're just doing bad and we don't know that we're doing bad and we are bad, which is called original sin, which is a Calvinist idea, which is wrong.

Matt (11:11.918)
Mosiah 319 natural man is an enemy to God. That's all it is. What do say David?

David (11:18.011)
So I'm just curious, the test seems like it is effective to at least turn a light on the fact that there's something below your consciousness that's working at you. And so I'm curious as to, is this an intent to elevate, inform, just shine some light indirectly, raise some awareness, or is it intended to then lead to structural changes, policy legislation, to try to...

squeeze more of that out and that I think is where it becomes problematic, right? Because we don't feel the same level of accountability or guilt or wrongness for things that we didn't intend or know to do. If I'm taking your class and I, you know, it's great time and I got X amount right on the test or my paper had this and you know my outward actions, my

Matt (11:51.98)
Yeah.

Shawn (11:53.939)
Great point.

Matt (12:02.86)
Yeah. Yeah.

David (12:15.623)
feedback, whatever was above my consciousness. And then at the end you say, yeah, but I think subconsciously, I just don't think you know this. I don't think you get it all. And so something below the surface ends up being accountable. It's hard. I don't know if we can enforce the below ground stuff. That I think is where we're getting stuck.

Matt (12:30.349)
Yeah.

Matt (12:37.506)
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think that for me, the purpose of the test is twofold. One, if you look at all of the research about how do you reduce racism, the research would say education. you people with more education are not racist. But if you if you measure if you do these implicit attitudes tests, education actually doesn't cure racism at all. So what I actually think happens is education teaches people how to think or behave or talk in such a way

Shawn (12:38.183)
Great. Great points.

Matt (13:07.458)
so that they no longer appear racist, but they still kind of retain those implicit attitudes. So for me, it's twofold. One is to say, whatever it is we think that we have out there that's curing racism isn't actually working. And then the other one is to say, I should recognize not just about race, but about everything in my life that I have implicit biases. And if I'm not being consciously, if I'm not thinking about the decisions I'm making,

I should be aware of the fact that my implicit biases are not inspired, they're not the best thing to do, and even though it might be a preference that I have that just feels right to me, it still might not be the right thing to do, and we should think thoughtfully about the choices we make and how they affect other people.

Shawn (13:50.003)
I mean, I love that message, Matt, I really do. And I'm getting like passionate about it because I thank you once again in my life for introducing topics and thoughts that really carry me through a week and let me think about stuff. I love it, I really do. And I love thinking about it all week and studying it and testing it. It's a great topic. And I agree with everything you just said. There's just, are, David nailed it, there are certain politically motivated elements of the test, of the book.

that are meant to, I think in a dishonest way, influence political policy and attitudes. And I think that's the wrong way to use it. The way you just said it, beautiful. And I love that and I agree with it.

Matt (14:33.006)
Well, one of the reasons I chose political science is because I didn't like the idea of people taking my research and using it for the wrong purposes. And I thought, what's the one field where nobody's ever like, we need some expertise on this. And I was like, political science. I've never been in a world where someone's like, what does the political scientist have to say about this?

Shawn (14:51.04)
What do mean? You don't, like you said before, you're not on an airplane and someone's like, we need an expert here someone's needs. And you're like, I'm a doctor. I'm a political scientist. No.

Matt (14:55.278)
Contrary to David's life where people are always asking him to look at their teeth and give them expertise, it never happens to me that they're like, could you help me understand what's happening in the world right now? Nobody wants that information.

David (15:04.839)
tough.

David (15:11.289)
Urgent weekend calls to your local political scientist.

Shawn (15:13.811)
Matt, one last piece. Matt Moses 6 56 and it is given unto them to know good from evil wherefore they are agents unto themselves. So if there's an element of us that doesn't know the good or the evil, if we're ignorant, if there's this like secret blind bias, then we're not agents unto ourselves. And that's an issue that I have.

Matt (15:35.47)
But Sean, that's everything in life. You can think back on your own life when you look back and you say, my heavens, I can't believe I used to do that. I had no idea like how I was behaving or how that looked.

Shawn (15:43.706)
When I was at.

Shawn (15:48.189)
But that's the point, right? Is that the fact that you're able to say that is proof that God gave us the ability to know that good from evil because now I...

Matt (15:56.13)
But you didn't know it at the time. didn't know. Sean, I'm reading my mission journal right now to my kids because they're about to go on missions.

Shawn (15:59.827)
why can't I be a part of that, dude? Why haven't you called me and said we're starting to read my journal? Dude, that would make me so happy.

David (16:04.925)
Thank

Matt (16:08.928)
And as I read about myself in the MTC, I'm like, my goodness, like the stupid things I thought the stupid things I said. Yeah. Because I was ignorant. That's the whole point of life. You start ignorant and then you hopefully grow over time. And so for me to look back and say like men by nature are prideful men by nature are lustful. There's nothing that shouldn't shock anybody. Right? We overcome these things as we realize, my goodness, I didn't realize that I was acting that way. And then you repent and change.

Shawn (16:14.323)
Yes, you're an idiot in MTC. Yes, you were.

Shawn (16:32.349)
Yeah, yeah, you're right.

David (16:37.986)
So how much of that process, you go back to Mosaic 319, put off the natural man, become a saint, how much of that is due to external feedback, external structures, or how much do you just need to kind of wake up and take those, you know, grow those muscles and make those changes? And should that inform how we go about our efforts to reduce racism?

Matt (16:48.172)
Yeah.

Matt (17:01.71)
Well, so Sean has shared this story before where I'm in the MTC and I'm being a brat in class because I'm bored and the MTC teacher throws the chalk eraser at my head. Like that was external feedback that let me know I'd gone a little bit too far.

David (17:14.203)
Yeah. I'm not suggesting there's not a place. I'm just I'm trying to figure out how they fit.

Matt (17:18.766)
Yeah. I think that a humble person will take feedback from any source. I think that Heavenly Father probably tries to give us external feedback when we're not paying attention, right? I don't know. I don't know the answer to how to like quantify that, but I

Shawn (17:36.563)
do really love this topic, Matt, and I appreciate you bringing it up and bringing in these other elements. And I do appreciate them. I did enjoy them. I got a little animated just because some of it was really stupid and it's just fun. Yeah, that's true.

Matt (17:45.006)
Because you're white and you've learned that you hate yourself just a little bit. need to Sean tonight make some extra efforts to let your wife know you love her even though you have a slight preference for African American children over European American children. Maybe she's experiencing microaggressions from you and you're not aware of it. We could. Okay.

Shawn (17:56.755)
She's white.

Okay, I'll try, okay.

Shawn (18:08.531)
Audience, audience, this is the facetiousness of our friend Matt who loves to poke a little bit.

Matt (18:16.032)
Okay, I get to go first on the thought provoker this week. Okay, there's a new study that was published this week that showed that the flood of Chinese imports that started hitting America about 25 years ago, radically altered the US economy. It upended manufacturing communities. And although the economy in those communities eventually rebounded, those manufacturing jobs didn't come back. They were replaced with like service sector things or restaurant jobs. And a lot of the people who worked in manufacturing

no longer have those jobs. And a lot of those people have are kind of the base or the core of Trump supporters in the upper Midwest today. But I don't think that their hope that Trump will bring back manufacturing. I don't think based on this study that that's a realistic hope. I don't think that these jobs that have been lost to China and manufacturing are ever going to come back despite Trump's efforts to try to bring them back.

But at the same time, what we have going on right now is China is no longer trying to bring manufacturing to China. Now they're trying to recruit in the tech industry. Currently they're offering workers in the tech field triple their salaries to leave their companies in the United States and move to China. So my question is, would it be better for Trump to spend his time trying to prevent the loss of new jobs to China in like the tech industry rather than trying to rebuild manufacturing in the United States?

David (19:36.389)
or anything.

you

Shawn (19:42.323)
Great question, Matt. Do you want to take it David or do you want me to go first?

David (19:45.337)
You hit it.

Shawn (19:47.275)
I mean, my gut response is Matt, well, let's do both. Like, why not? Why not try to improve both manufacturing and retain the tech jobs? But, I'm be curious, Matt, what do you think are the reasons that, that, and I think there's a consensus that the manufacturing jobs probably aren't going to come back the way they ever were, which points out that probably Trump is just using that message as a political, political strategy, right? It's just propaganda, which worked.

Matt (20:15.404)
Yeah.

Shawn (20:16.647)
which worked. That was a smart move. It really, really worked. But why do you think is the main reason why those jobs won't come back? Is it because of the cheap unethical labor that happens in China and there's no way we can get products cheaper?

Matt (20:20.035)
Yeah, I mean...

Matt (20:27.682)
Yeah. Slave labor. Yeah. Ding, Yeah. Well, okay. So when you, when you have a manufacturing, when you shut down a manufacturing facility, something's going to happen to that space, right? Either the building will fall into disrepair or it'll be converted to something else. So the cost to rebuild a manufacturing plant is expensive. Labor in the United States is also more expensive. Not we have laws that regulate labor.

But then there's also unions. So a lot of the people who working in manufacturing have union jobs. And so, yeah, you can't compete with China.

Shawn (21:00.915)
So if we were to put human rights to the side, we would say, well, let the free market proceed then. Like China has figured out a way, unethical as it is, to create cheaper products faster, right? And so, okay, they're gonna win out and USA will never be able to compete with that. But we don't just put aside ethics, right? We don't. We say, well, human rights is gonna trump capitalism.

Yeah, maybe the idea that Trump, if it's not just political, maybe his idea of going and trying to affect that by putting tariffs on people, by trying to even out the marketplace, like trying to put penalties on them, stealing intellectual properties.

Matt (21:45.454)
But that doesn't put penalties on them, that just makes goods more expensive for the US consumer. When you say we're going to... Really? You want to pay 25 % more for all of the goods that you have just to save manufacturing in the United States?

Shawn (21:49.703)
Yeah, but aren't we willing to pay that if are we willing to pay a little more extra in order for

Shawn (21:58.651)
I don't want people in China to be slaves.

Matt (22:01.166)
Well then don't buy their products.

Shawn (22:03.151)
So that's your solution is boycott the Chinese products as opposed to let our government let Trump go in there. Trump go in there and try to affect the slave labor and try to get prices, Chinese prices up. And now, yeah, we pay more for everything. Sure.

Matt (22:06.478)
I mean, that's the capitalist.

Matt (22:18.926)
Do you honestly think, Sean, do you honestly think that Trump could do anything to persuade China to stop using slave labor?

Shawn (22:26.855)
I mean we've seen in the last few weeks. here we go open it open up the box. There we go.

Matt (22:30.028)
No, I'd love, please tell me more about how China could, or Trump could do that.

Shawn (22:34.513)
No, I'm just saying I'm not saying he could. I'm saying his attempt to hold leverage against countries that he's negotiating with the evidence. Okay, this is where Matt's going to get triggered. It seems to be working. He seems to be working. He seems to be using. There we go. There we go.

Matt (22:46.274)
I'm not triggered. Sean, tell me, okay, you had one example of like Columbia, right? What happened when he threatened tariffs on Canada? What did Canada do?

Shawn (22:58.119)
They freaked out and yes, they did. And they went back to some of the agreements that they've agreed to do like sending troops to the border, but they actually weren't implementing and they actually started to implement it to show Trump. I mean, the reports are that they're saying we're coming, we're coming, we're getting them there.

Matt (22:59.544)
Don't, they did nothing.

Matt (23:09.07)
Oh, there are now troops there?

Matt (23:14.862)
You mean like they started saying in September of last year?

Shawn (23:18.065)
Okay, but if they don't, then Trump comes back and goes, all right, the tariffs are gonna be implemented. Same thing, same thing.

David (23:18.205)
you

Matt (23:21.902)
And what did Mexico do? No, Mexico already had 15,000 troops at the border.

Shawn (23:27.999)
I saw that report. don't know that that was corroborated or if that was like, yeah, but again, the same, but

Matt (23:31.694)
This is the Mexican they put them there in the Biden administration those 15,000 troops and they said we promise we'll keep 10,000 there forevermore. So Trump got nothing out of that.

Shawn (23:41.139)
We're right, no, I saw that report too. You sent me that report. That was interesting. but, but, but again, but again, if nothing changes, the idea is that this president will continue to use the leverage of, well, look, you haven't stopped. You haven't done anything. If you haven't done the things we're asking, then tariffs are coming. Yeah. And eventually, well, we'll see. We'll see. David, David, what do you think?

Matt (23:46.44)
That wasn't like, that wasn't like what there were.

Matt (23:54.539)
You really think

Matt (23:58.734)
then I'll threaten it again and I'll threaten it again and not do anything.

David (24:04.093)
I don't think Trump does that because the honest truth is we don't have that leverage with China the way we do with some of our other neighbors. And so I don't think we get to that point. And this is where I say, we sort of turn the page on that type of work in our country. We had like small little versions of China scattered around, little towns all over. Working conditions not great, labor costs low.

Matt (24:10.317)
Yeah.

David (24:32.54)
nearby some natural resources. We've largely turned the page on that. And so now there's just one huge version of it in China. I think what would be useful is for, whether it's local politicians or whoever's in the Oval Office to say, no, that manufacturing is coming back, but manufacturing jobs aren't. Like we're going to build stuff, but we're using robots and we're using tech. We're not going to have

Moderately trained people or highly skilled whatever it is We're not going to be able to do what we did and that's why there's those folks in those communities Sort of like in the stuck in time like well if we hang in there Maybe it'll come back because they've been told every three or four years. Oh, yeah, we're gonna revive this we're gonna bring back What China was through the 60s 70s 80s and what we were through the 60s 70s 80s word

Shawn (25:30.173)
No.

David (25:30.493)
that golden age of manufacturing when they were digging out of wars and we were building 90 % of the world's cars, those conditions aren't coming back and nobody's, we're not being honest if you say, oh yeah, we'll revive that. I don't think that's coming.

Shawn (25:41.309)
So David, think-

Shawn (25:46.205)
So David, you don't think it's the cheap labor and unethical labor in China that's preventing manufacturing to come back to America or at least the jobs. You think it's technology.

David (25:57.339)
well it's technology and and we're were sort of attached to this golden age in u s manufacturing where we didn't any real peers in the world and that's not a fair point of reference to our conversations of plans expectations going forward and nobody's really standing up to say no now you could buy a car you buy a decent car from twenty different countries and that was the case before

I think the conversation is China can do things that we're not going to do. They might pay money that we're not going to do. And to Matt's question about what do you do about it, I think just being candid about, in our system, our magic secret sauce is we've got it dispersed. We're more innovative. We're more flexible. We might lose a third of the people we train to other countries, but that's our magic, our university system. And China's got a thing.

They're going to play a game we're not going to match and they're going to have advantages we don't. We can't eclipse. They're going to massive amounts of internal state spending. We might fund things, but they're through private companies. We're not going to attack it the way China is attacking it. I don't think we should try to mimic that. And we should recognize they've got advantages. We're not going to try to copy. Do we have a better version of our game? That's what we've to play.

Matt (26:56.332)
Yeah.

Matt (27:07.191)
Yeah.

Shawn (27:12.115)
Interesting.

Shawn (27:17.725)
beat with. Which is your point.

Matt (27:18.616)
If you

Shawn (27:22.609)
Is that your point, Matt? What's your point?

Matt (27:24.384)
If you look at the numbers, Biden has done more to bring manufacturing back to the United States than Trump did in his first term. And I think it'll end up being more than Trump ends up doing in his second term because the peak, the best time for U.S. manufacturing was the pandemic when there's, when all the supply lines are, there's all those changes and then inflation is taking off and U.S. companies like Apple and all of these companies that said, Hey, we'll outsource the production of components.

and then we'll import those and then use those to build the phones in the United States. They said, it makes more sense for us to bring that manufacturing back to the United States because it'll help us with these supply chains. So I think that whatever manufacturing the United States is gonna do, it happened in the Biden administration and going forward, it's fruitless. If your job didn't come back in the pandemic when Toyota couldn't get their cars here and when all these various places could...

It's not gonna come back now once we have a more open trade system globally. What we need to do is, what we need to do is we need to train, no, no, no, that's good. We should train our workforce for the 21st century. We had to shift from agriculture to manufacturing. We have to shift from manufacturing to some other kind of a way of like making money.

Shawn (28:25.533)
So we just need another pandemic.

David (28:28.423)
China can help with that too. No, I didn't say that. You can edit that out. I don't know what

Shawn (28:39.591)
Yeah, I like that.

Shawn (28:47.955)
Man, I'm mixed on that though, Matt. Like, I don't wanna eat food from... I like, I like...

Matt (28:51.917)
You have to.

Matt (28:56.824)
Well, you live in California, Sean, you're always gonna have good food. Like, you don't have to worry about it. Unless you support Trump's tariffs on Mexico, and then suddenly your food's gonna be super expensive. Because you-

Shawn (29:00.187)
Okay, solved. Okay, solved then. Okay.

Shawn (29:06.099)
I'm okay to pay more for good food for healthy food. It's okay. People should be because because we're support

Matt (29:09.558)
It's okay to also pay less for healthy food because we're not paying taxes on the food that comes from Mexico. We have a free trade agreement with them. It's okay if we just honor that free trade agreement that we have.

David (29:12.573)
Thanks.

Shawn (29:14.875)
Yeah

Shawn (29:19.159)
Or we can improve the conditions in America so that we can make our own food and have a good living wage and then eat healthy food from our own people.

Matt (29:25.35)
Mm-hmm. I'm giving points to David on this one. He saved us from Sean's rabbit hole. Sean was taking us down a scary rabbit hole about Trump can save the world or something like that. okay.

David (29:29.565)
Bye.

Shawn (29:33.619)
I didn't want it. didn't say that. I don't think that.

David (29:40.862)
Points, and I say this as somebody who's caught most of your shows, the points, I'm not, is there a bank? Is there a finite number? Is there merchandise, airline credits? What do we do with the points other than?

Matt (29:46.878)
hahahahah

Shawn (29:49.191)
That's a great question. I like that question. The end goal in 25 years is when we're going to end the podcast and then you'll find out.

Matt (29:59.63)
My love language is words of affirmation, so I just need points so that I just feel affirmed. That's how your love language works. Like if your love language is gifts, they don't have to be good gifts. It's just somebody thought of you and gave you something. That's how words of affirmation are. I can write down for you exactly what to say and you can say it and it just feels good. It feels love. So David, now that you know that about me, who gets the points?

David (30:00.721)
Ha

Shawn (30:04.723)
Even fake, even fake affirmation like points. Yeah.

Shawn (30:14.259)
You

David (30:31.951)
I'm, I'm, this is a one-time deal, Matt, but I'll, I'll give you the points on this one. How does sympathetic, yeah. You, well, you, gave it to me. You wrote it for me. So I will affirm.

Matt (30:33.422)
You

Matt (30:37.24)
Yes! Yes!

Shawn (30:41.811)
Sorry, man. I'm give David the points too though.

Matt (30:42.222)
David, it feels so good inside. feels okay. All right, Sean, you're up next. Sean's love language is physical touch. If you see Sean, you got to embrace him, wrestle him, like rub his head or something like that. That's Sean's love language.

David (30:49.022)
Sean and I have only known each other for 20 minutes here, so we'll work on that. Once I know your love language.

Shawn (31:08.947)
Was that a comment about my height, Matt? Rubbing the head like, little guy?

Matt (31:11.67)
No, it's every single time I see you, jump up on me with your arms around me, you start rubbing the top of my head. Yeah, right. So no, I've never rubbed your head, but you do that to me. Right? Have I ever rubbed your head? I don't think I've ever.

Shawn (31:16.787)
Yeah, I beat you up a little bit. It's That's because it's your dog language.

Shawn (31:26.077)
But I also, Matt, at the same time that I'm hugging you and beating you up, saying, Matt, you're my favorite person on the planet. You've changed my life, right? I'm giving you your love language too.

Matt (31:31.245)
Yeah.

That's true. No, no, but that's the only reason I said rub your head is because I guess I could have said poke his eyes, your thumbs in his eyes. Yeah, I was it has nothing to do with whether you're tall or not tall.

Shawn (31:38.515)
I'd do that too. I'd do that to you too. Yeah.

Shawn (31:48.054)
Thanks for clarity. All right, I'm up. Super Bowl is coming up. We're going to the podcast post Super Bowl, but we're recording pre Super Bowl. So we don't know what happens. So no point making any predictions or anything like that. But what is it? Kansas City Chiefs and the Eagles, man. Both teams. Andy Reid was the head coach of. It is the head coach of

David (31:54.173)
Thanks

Matt (32:04.462)
Chill it out for your eagles.

Matt (32:08.953)
yeah, he caught both of them. Yeah.

David (32:09.659)
Another Andy Reid bolt now.

Shawn (32:15.155)
It's pretty awesome that the most popular person in the state of Missouri is a member of our church, right? Andy Reid. recently, think was the week before Andy Reid was doing a press conference and someone asked him what his favorite book trilogy is. And guess what he answered?

Matt (32:30.722)
Lord of the Rings, Twilight.

Shawn (32:31.941)
Nope, nope, Harry Potter, which is the right answer. well, guess what he answered it. You guys know the answer. Did you hear this?

Matt (32:34.926)
That's not a trilogy.

Matt (32:41.696)
Yeah, I heard it.

Shawn (32:42.823)
So Book of Mormon, and the Bible he says, the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price. Which is fascinating, right? Because most of the people watching were like, what? What's he, what? What the heck? What's he saying? So Elder Quentin Cook in conference talked about one time that he was with Andy Reid and they went and they spoke to a bunch of people. And he said Andy Reid's main message that he has kind of preached his whole life.

Matt (32:53.902)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (33:08.667)
emphasizes second chances and responding to invitations and opportunities, which is what the gospel of Jesus Christ is about and forgiveness, right? So, lately in my circles, Matt, I've heard so much pain and anger and hate and disappointment right now amongst my Democrat friends. Like many seem like they act like they're in pain and the world is over and it is really like I could tell they're in pain, man.

And they don't like life right now. So whether we like their politics, like a politician's or a party's politics or not, shouldn't we listen to Andy Reid? Shouldn't we take the message of second chances, forgiveness? And shouldn't we act like disciples of Christ and have the same attitude as Andy Reid does about like when the Republicans lost to Biden, shouldn't the right Christ-like attitude be

Give him a second chance. Let's give him a chance. Let's be forgiving. Let's not like think that he's gonna ruin the whole world. Shouldn't the Democrats and my friends have the same attitude towards this administration?

Matt (34:14.606)
Don't you think that they are doing that? I think the Democrats are trying to give Trump a second chance. They're just mad at the choices he's made with that second chance.

Shawn (34:17.587)
Well, I'm just.

Shawn (34:24.627)
I mean, like I was saying, the friends that I have, they're angry, they're almost hate-filled, they're just angry about it. I don't see a lot of forgiveness or, let's give them a second chance. Come on, Matt, you see that? You don't see that?

Matt (34:37.176)
Mmm.

David (34:39.516)
I think part of Andy, I'm sorry, Matt, before I lose the thought, what seems unique about, I'm going to say Andy is he has the charm and folksiness and neighborliness of a good, know, somebody you just want to hang with. He's, you know, personable. He's genuine. He's, and yet he's this exceptionally high performer who's at the top of the charts of a very competitive field. And he works with very competitive people with very high stakes.

Matt (34:39.618)
Well, no, go ahead, David.

Shawn (34:41.885)
Go ahead, David, go ahead.

David (35:09.029)
And you don't usually get that combination. You could be one or the other. And I think you tip your hat to Andy because he can pull that off simultaneously in a way not many people can model that. I actually dressed up as Andy Reid for Halloween this past year. And I don't usually take Halloween that seriously. And Matt and I both kind of share the same body build of Andy Reid. And so it worked. But so I think you do have to pause and say it's

Matt (35:24.27)
you

you

Matt (35:31.287)
Yeah.

Shawn (35:32.605)
Ha ha ha!

David (35:37.915)
That's a good expectation and hope for people to have. And let's work there by saying, not many people pull it off quite that well.

Matt (35:45.174)
Yeah.

Shawn (35:45.767)
Well, it's a good point. But real quick, Matt, before you go, I didn't really give you the reasons why he preaches this. So for really extraordinary reasons. So Tyreek Hill, who everyone had written off because of domestic violence, he said this about me, he says, you know what, he's actually admitting that he was wrong. And a lot of people won't do that. They just go won't go there. On top of that, he's trying to fix himself. Like he has this very loving like second chance. Okay, you're repenting, keep coming. And then

Kareem Hunt, was also, he did some pretty bad things, right? Domestic abuse. he said, Reed said, he just says he wants to be here and he wants to change. he says, I know he has changed. And he says, I know he wants to redeem himself. That's what he's expressed to me. And again, he's saying, I'm gonna give him a second chance. Michael Vick was the same exact thing, right? In prison, gets out, everyone's written him off. And he says, he has acknowledged to me the difficulty of.

practicing that people will have about practicing forgiveness, but he is humble and contrite and he says as much as we all believe in the concept of forgiveness, it's hard when people are actually a practice. So there's story after story of Andy Reid going these people have done horrible, terrible things. I'm not gonna give up on them. I'm going to believe in them. All right, sorry Matt, go ahead.

Matt (36:58.946)
Yeah, I just think that Andy Reid's personal life probably has a lot to do with that, right? He has two sons that struggled with drug and alcohol addictions. One of his sons took his life. So, and I just think that he has not just the gospel perspective, but he has life perspective to understand that when people are struggling, they need help and they need second chances and sometimes maybe third chances. I don't know how much you can apply it to politics, right? Because,

I think that everybody's willing to give their elected leaders a second chance, a third chance, I guess, right? They're going to be hopeful that they do the right thing because they have no other option but to do that. when a person is in the situation where they're being harmed by something that's being done by a political leader, I don't think that's the time to say, well, give them another chance or give them a second chance. Because there are people right now, Sean, that are being detained by ICE illegally, unlawfully. There are people that have their jobs being threatened.

illegally and unlawfully. And so I don't know that this is the time to say to those people, hey, give them a second chance. Maybe this will be better. But there is room for that, right? But also the person has to want forgiveness. They have to want you to give them another chance.

Shawn (38:13.459)
I don't know the big question that we're going to go over today really, I don't know if it aligns with what you just said, right? It, cause it talks about when we get there, it's going to talk about, well, isn't our job as a disciple of Christ to not play the partisan sides, right? Don't, don't go to extremes and make the other team the villain and put conditions on our support or our love or our kindness to them. Like I felt that, like I didn't like Biden gunning into office when he did four years ago or whatever.

Matt (38:20.224)
okay.

Matt (38:33.112)
Sure.

Shawn (38:43.089)
Yeah, four years ago. But I remember sitting and go, but this guy made it. I'm going to give him a chance. I don't agree with a lot what he does, but let's go, man. I'm going to pray for you. I want you to succeed. I want us to do really great things. And when he did things that were horrible and terrible, I didn't feel like it was the, can, yeah, I can criticize him, but I didn't go, that's it. This guy's an evil, wicked, the most evil thing on the planet. And I'm ready to just, just, just go into the streets and grab arms and let's go. But I see a lot of that.

Matt (38:57.934)
then you were critical of him.

David (39:10.342)
you

Shawn (39:11.783)
That's what I'm hearing. lot of that is, is the same thing. Like everything he's doing is illegal and everything he's doing is harmful to people. And this is wrong. But I hear a lot of that, like pain and anger. And shouldn't there be a little more support and love and forgiveness, unify unifying.

Matt (39:26.286)
There are also people who are his supporters that are taking advantage of these opportunities to go out and march for hateful, awful things. So in some ways, he's giving people a license to express the worst versions of themselves. And it's okay for people to say, look, we gave you a second chance, and with your second chance, you're doing what you did the first time. And so we don't wanna keep seeing that. No, I know, I understand.

Shawn (39:49.611)
And by the way, I didn't vote for Trump and I like some things he's doing. don't like a ton of things he's doing. But so, okay, so you disagree. You think, no, he doesn't get forgiveness because his behavior has to earn that forgiveness.

Matt (40:02.082)
I'm saying that a second chance, not forgiveness, you don't give somebody a second chance when they haven't asked for you to give them a second chance. And you don't give them a second chance while they're in the middle of doing again the thing that you were mad about the first time.

Shawn (40:18.984)
Interesting.

David (40:19.525)
Mike Vic reformed before he joined the Eagles, right? I think that's the point. So Andy has this gift to see the humanity in people. They're not just Xs and Os and jerseys and positions. He seems like he resonates, but yeah, they, and they also performed like the second chance doesn't keep going if you lose us ball games and if you're not on the field and if you're not at workouts, like.

Matt (40:23.682)
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

David (40:46.32)
it's not an indefinite open check to say well i guess because i love you it's a blank check that's not the deal i think that's little too far

Matt (40:55.586)
David gets my points again, Sean. David gets them again.

David (40:59.045)
I'm giving these ones to Sean. Just, you know, just trying to keep it real.

Shawn (41:03.603)
You don't have a reason though. Just keep it fair.

Matt (41:05.816)
Yeah, if you don't have a good enough reason, David, he won't take your points. It has to be.

Shawn (41:09.149)
Yeah, it's gotta be, yeah, it's gotta be real.

David (41:09.399)
well, that's right. That's right. So let me think here for a second. I appreciate. Here's what I'll say. Matt and I, yeah, we'll do that virtually here. Matt and I would have taken the low hanging fruit being former Kansans and, you know, Chiefs fans and made this a 20 minute sports discussion. You elevated that, you took it somewhere useful. I had this in conversation with my wife yesterday. I had to double check.

Matt (41:11.98)
It has to be heartfelt, well thought out.

Shawn (41:16.851)
with a hug and with a big hug David.

Shawn (41:31.655)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Matt (41:31.98)
that's true. Yeah.

David (41:37.77)
I've been asked, you know, we were asked to give the prayers and sacrament tomorrow and I said, if I'm saying the closing prayer, can I kind of like invoke an extra blessing on brother Reed later in the day? that okay? that? Yes.

Matt (41:47.246)
I thought you were going to say you had to check and see if it was overlapping with the Super Bowl. You're like, I can't do the closing prayer. I could do a sacrament prayer, but we won't be there after the sacrament. My church is my

Shawn (41:48.925)
Why not? Why not? Why not?

Shawn (41:58.194)
You

David (41:58.461)
We'll keep it clean, we'll play it straight, but no, you're taking that to better place, Sean, so you earn those.

Shawn (42:09.587)
Oh, you gave me reasons. Thank you.

Matt (42:10.624)
My church goes from 1.30 to 3.30. Will I miss the Super Bowl because I'm in church? okay. All right. We'll be fine. All right. All right, David, you're up.

David (42:15.389)
So 430 kickoff, Matt, you're in the clear.

Shawn (42:18.643)
You

David (42:22.073)
Okay, well, so I asked myself this question and so I'll just open it up to the two of you. I have a concern and then I wonder what might be done about the concern. So kind of a two-part thing. My concern is that there have always been people that seem like they kind of take advantage of either position or the law. It's not always uniformly observed or enforced. Everything from

you know that so and so brother-in-law get the contract for the roads or did oj get off easy or you know recent examples we you know shoplifting rules that you just just go ahead we're not even enforced that sanctuary cities maybe there's laws on the books we choose to bend or carve out some space and our last two presidents

Both significant examples, I think of the way, and I'm simplifying a little here, but President Biden in his last hours, he kind of created a bunch of get out of jail free cards for people close to him. And I think of the way some criminal proceedings with President Trump were at least put on pause or on ice or abbreviated simply because of who he became.

on a certain day when he took office. what I wonder is, I'm sure there's always been people kind of above the law or getting, know, not applicable. I know that's been happening, but it just seems like it's now at our highest, maybe in our highest office. this, is it, are we getting a little bit imperial with how much...

we're putting on our chief executive in our country and how much I think about how the last four presidents were also given Congress with both houses of their same party. I believe that was the case with Obama, 08, with Trump in 16, Biden 2020, and recently, you know, this last election with Trump. We voted somebody into office.

David (44:43.166)
They don't seem to have any check in Congress. This is going back for a generation now. Is it us as the public that has let that escalate? And so what can we as a public do to make sure we're all still in this together? Does that make sense?

Shawn (45:02.482)
What do think, a good thing we have a political science professor.

Matt (45:05.262)
On that other pattern, Bush in 2000 and Clinton in 1992, they also both had unified.

David (45:05.661)
That's right.

David (45:11.705)
It seems to go in waves and I know that's how it works, but gosh, it just seems like each time that domino gets bigger with what the next person just says, well, I have a mandate or elections have consequences. mean, this is just, yeah.

Matt (45:22.904)
Yeah.

Shawn (45:24.403)
I wanna see if our political scientist answers objectively if he has a...

Matt (45:31.384)
Well, so in terms of pardoning, because we talk about this, there's a day in class where we talk about it, these pardons at the end of a term of office, these are really common, right? Jimmy Carter pardoned everybody who dodged the Vietnam draft. Bill Clinton pardoned his brother. He pardoned people that were members of a terrorist organization. Like these pardons at the end of the term happen kind of all the time. Obama, his pardons were more about nonviolent drug offenders, but...

mass pardons isn't a new thing. What's different is probably who is getting the preferential treatment, right? Like Biden pardoning his family, because one of the reasons I supported Biden the most was because I was concerned about the breakdown of law and order in American society and the Trump administration. And I had hopes that Biden and the Democrats would help restore

Shawn (46:10.215)
hahahaha

Matt (46:28.35)
some of the constitutional order that was missing from in the Trump first Trump administration. And so I was really disappointed with what Joe Biden did at the end. I just, and the question of, it new? I don't think it's new. What's different, I think is how accepting Americans are of it. there's right, like in the past, like Richard Nixon, if we go through Watergate and say, what did Richard Nixon do wrong in Watergate that made it so that he had to resign from office? Like,

Come on, Trump did almost everything Nixon did in Watergate. Trump did that multiple times in his first term. But Americans are just more accepting of it now. And I don't know if it's because they're misinformed or because their values have changed and they've decided who cares? Everybody's bad. I'm gonna have my bad person win, right? As long as it's my guy, who cares if he's bad? Because at least my side wins. I don't know if that's the change that's happened. But it does seem to be like Americans are more accepting of the...

the open blatant corruption than they were in the past.

Shawn (47:32.851)
Hmm.

David (47:33.214)
Do think that's the public? I'm sorry to cut you off, Sean, but since you bring that up, Matt, I was thinking about the Nixon corollary because he's in hot water, got some rules that are broken, bent, whatever. And his own party is part of pressuring him to resign. And he has a case that goes to the Supreme Court and they find nine zero against him. Like it wasn't just public opinion. It was the institutions of government that didn't let that get out of hand.

Matt (48:00.269)
Yeah.

Matt (48:03.576)
Yeah.

David (48:03.877)
So tell me on a people level and on a structural level, have we shifted and do we now have, know, is it like Louis the 14th, I am the state, les tafs et moi, like I get to call my shot here now. Is there any check?

Matt (48:18.958)
I, I still believe that the courts are an adequate check on the precedent. We'll, we'll see, right? But I still feel like the courts, not in all cases, certainly we have examples of judges that are doing things that seem very partisan and not consistent with law and legal precedent and things like that. But I think generally, I think the courts are still an adequate check. At least I'm hopeful that they still are.

Congress, even in Nixon, David, like Congress, the reason that those Republicans turned on Richard Nixon is because they were Republicans from the South who had a different agenda. They were not like really loyal to him. The way that the party was just different then, I guess is what I would say. But I will point out this, like when the Me Too movement happened, Senator Franken in Minnesota, there was a photo of him pretending to touch the breast of a woman.

service member and he had to resign from office because of this one photo that suggested that he was taking advantage of a woman and everybody knew it was a joke but his constituents demanded that he resign and now we have people that are being confirmed for positions in the executive branch and we have people that are candidates for public office who do far worse and their voters are seem to be willing to just sort of say whatever we'll vote for you.

So it seems to me like it's on the individual level is changing. What do you say, Sean?

Shawn (49:49.779)
I mean, I think the culture of the time matters, right? Like the, you said Al Franken, not Al Franken, yeah, Al Franken. Yeah, but that happened during the Me Too movement. so, yeah, but that was the Me Too movement. was when, that was, what I'm saying is the culture at the time was way less, you know.

Matt (49:55.34)
Yeah, yeah, there's only like 2018.

But six years ago, Sean.

Okay.

Matt (50:11.458)
Well, no, because we also knew at that time after, like we had statements from Donald Trump of him saying things that he had done to sexually assault women. Okay, but the Republicans didn't demand Trump's resignation because of that, right?

Shawn (50:20.499)
That's what I'm saying, which sparked the Me Too

Shawn (50:28.305)
Well, they kick well, they them out of the American people kicked him out of office because of that a little bit because of that.

Matt (50:32.782)
No, they voted for him out even after that stuff came out.

Shawn (50:37.552)
He didn't get re-elected as president.

Matt (50:39.569)
you think it's because of that? Okay.

Shawn (50:41.171)
I think that's part of it. Yeah, we were all sick of him. This this gross. Yeah, all I'm saying is culture effect doesn't culture affect it sometimes the times that we're living in, right? The Me Too movement had a big influence over Al Franken. I don't think if the Me Too movement was as popular as it was that Al Franken would have would have had to resign.

Matt (50:46.113)
Okay.

Matt (50:50.861)
Yeah.

Matt (51:00.558)
I think Trump pardoning the Proud Boys, mean, those people had been sentenced to 18 years, 20 years in federal prison for a violent attack against the United States. They were convicted of seditious conspiracy to overthrow the United States. Trump pardoning those individuals, we'll see what they end up doing, but that could go down as one of the most dangerous things that's ever happened to our country.

Shawn (51:17.885)
But you have to be mad.

But Matt, isn't it a black or white? Like you either have to go, well, we've given the president the power to grant these pardons or not, right? Like can we really not have a say in who they pardon and who they don't?

Matt (51:33.792)
It used to be that the public would hold the president accountable for that. It used to be that if a president had done something like that, public opinion would have turned on the president in a dime and they would have said, wow, you've just lost your country. You have no support from the public. then, I mean, that's the thing I don't know the answer to. So my answer to David's question is I think what's different is Americans are different and we're willing to tolerate things.

Shawn (51:41.49)
Mmm.

Shawn (51:51.603)
So what do you think caused that change? What do you think caused that change?

David (51:52.574)
I'm going leave you with a little bit of a little little bit a a little bit little bit a little bit bit bit of little little bit bit of a little a little

Shawn (52:03.324)
Interesting.

Matt (52:03.468)
the previous generations would not have tolerated.

Shawn (52:06.469)
Interesting. I'm going to definitely give Matt the points because you in a rare admission, a little bit of hope came out and said, he said, I have trust in the judicial system that it's a fair, it's a good balance. Wow. That's a rare, rare expression of hope.

David (52:22.107)
You

Matt (52:23.254)
I am hopeful. Yeah, hopeful. Okay. David's stingy with the points and I'm giving them to myself too. But it's okay if David doesn't want to make it unanimous. It'll be fine. It won't hurt my feelings.

Shawn (52:30.323)
you

Shawn (52:38.387)
What do think David?

David (52:40.049)
I don't think we let Sean talk very much that time, so I think they go to you, Matt.

Matt (52:43.906)
Yes, yes, that feels good. Okay, here's the big question. We talked about this a little bit last week in a different context, but so Thomas Griffith, when I introduce him, I say he is the highest ranking member of our church in any political office in the history of the United States. He was. You could maybe say Harry Reid because Harry Reid was Senate Majority Leader.

Shawn (52:44.369)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shawn (52:52.824)
Yeah, I really like this question.

Shawn (53:04.573)
He is,

Matt (53:12.076)
And so that's a pretty high ranking thing. But Thomas Griffith was a justice on the appellate court of the DC Court of Appeals, which is the highest ranking appellate court in the United States, just below the US Supreme Court. And there was talk that he might get nominated to be on the US Supreme Court. So he's a very influential, very high ranking Republican. He was nominated for his position by George W. Bush, and he resigned that spot in 2020.

Shawn (53:26.087)
Okay.

Shawn (53:29.917)
Okay.

Matt (53:41.356)
So he came on Thursday and spoke to students in our department and he made this argument. It was actually a really fascinating speech, but he took what President Oaks said in his talk on the US Constitution, which was on questions of intense disagreement, we seek moderation. And then he took President Nelson's talk where he said, we should be peacemakers.

And he said, I don't care what any prophet has said in the last 50, 60 years about politics. It's clear to me what our current president and our current prophet is telling us about politics. And then he took this other analogy. He said, there was a time when the church politically, we just left the United States and we fled into our own country and tried to do it all on our own. And then after a while we decided we're going to copy everybody else and we're going to do politics the way everybody else does politics.

And he said that he thinks that now is the time for the church to show the world the way to do politics the right way. And if we follow the counsel of President Nelson and President Oaks, we should do politics. He says these are his two principles. We should always look out for people on the margin, look out for the least of these among us, and we should always seek to bring people together because Christ unites and Satan divides. And so,

we as members of the church now have an obligation to not copy everybody else anymore, but to show them the right way by getting engaged in politics and focusing on those two principles. So my question is, do you think it's possible for members of our church to do this? Spencer Cox, the governor of Utah, he's trying to do this with governors. When he was head of the governor's association, he created an initiative called Disagree Better.

Shawn (55:15.251)
Wow.

Shawn (55:24.936)
Disney?

Matt (55:31.394)
and he would try and help governors figure out ways to find common ground with people with whom they disagreed. So he's trying, but my question is, do you think it's actually possible? Do you think it's possible for members of our church to be known as people who practice politics in the way God intended it to be done?

Shawn (55:40.701)
Wow.

Shawn (55:47.987)
Wow. I mean, I I love these two points, help the folks on the margin and bring people together. Christ unifies, divides. Beautiful. I would love it.

Matt (55:58.319)
But you won't win any primary election, Sean.

Shawn (56:02.001)
you've already you've already revealed your stance on this.

Matt (56:04.482)
Well, I'll just tell you my answer is no, I don't think it's possible.

Shawn (56:10.899)
That's funny. Well, I mean, I want to be hopeful and say it is possible, but I tend to agree with you. Like, here's the disco. So as I've been discussing this with a few of my friends, I kind of surveyed some of my friends and here's the general response I get. And I don't like it. And you're not going to like it. You're going to hate it. Okay. Here's what they, a lot of them said. They say, I'm not loyal to a bipartisan system. In other words, I'm not, you know, they say in, in,

Matt (56:28.472)
Okay.

Shawn (56:39.129)
in words, I'm not loyal to the Republican Party or the Democrat Party. Like, that's not where I'm putting all my loyalty. And then they put a huge however in there. And they say, however, when I look at which party implements policies closer to the doctrines of the church, it's always the Republican Party. So look at that. But this is what I hang on here. But our topic isn't to discuss that or even debate that your topic is, do we have hope that the members of the church can

Matt (56:56.942)
It's so not even close to true. Yeah, that's right.

Shawn (57:08.915)
create a new ethos in politics and get away from that. And unless Matt, you can somehow convince people to stop thinking that way, whether it's true or not, I agree with you that I'm not sure that we can do that.

Matt (57:22.892)
What do think David?

David (57:25.182)
Uh, so I think God is not that impressed with us when we get along with people that think like us and like us, right? If, if, if, so Christ lives in first century Palestine and when he runs into unclean, 10 unclean people on the road, he helps them get better. I don't know what that looks like in modern times, or he'll give a parable about just the craziest situation he can and have.

Matt (57:33.859)
huh. Yeah.

David (57:55.325)
the Samaritan come in and help them get better. And so my first thought was, Christ is alive, if he's a 30 year old in today's society, what kind of parables is he telling to get those same messages to us? Because it's not about publicans and Samaritans, it's about getting over your own inherent territorialness, right? So who would he use? How would he help me try to...

What's my 2024 version of the Good Samaritan in this country? And that is a useful thing. So I'm trying to tackle this on a personal level and on a civic level, this is where I'm gonna give you a glimmer of hope, So I'm thinking about the Book of Mormon, which is a thousand years of mostly what not to do as a community, as a culture.

Shawn (58:48.659)
hehe

David (58:53.159)
there's wonderful examples but as a group of people it's more bad news than good but there's glimmers right and and i remember just this past year's were studying book of armistice pointed out whenever lehi's family is separated there's trouble whenever there's heights whenever you got new kit whenever you get but but in those rare times when they either had a common enemy that push them together

or after Christ's visit there together. There's a few, there's some glimpses, but it's when they totally got over, you know, they got over all the static. And so you're right to be skeptical. It doesn't have a much, but in scripture we believe in with people who had, I'm gonna say deeper divisions than we have today. I think that ran centuries deep with

as much as we get tangled up in talk radio and red and blue and whatever we're not as deep as laminites and the fights with their stories that they had over centuries and abuses and wars and who killed who and they still got it sometimes and so i know that's an extreme example and i know how likely it is but it's not off the table

Matt (01:00:12.984)
So these are the, okay, I'll tell you, there's a couple of things I think about. The first is when did it actually work? When do we actually have cities of Zion that actually pull it off? The one is the city of Enoch. That city got taken up into heaven and the people that weren't in the city of Enoch stayed behind and got drowned in the flood with Noah, right? So it feels like that's not super successful because.

They sort of just kicked out all the bad people and left them behind to die while they got taken up into heaven. And we tried to do it as an early church. We tried to build Zion as this community and the early saints and didn't work out so well. think King Benjamin is another approach to try to build this Christ-like community. It feels like it's hard to do without killing all of the bad people. When Jesus comes to the Nephites, Jesus comes to the Nephites and institutes 200 years of peace.

Shawn (01:01:01.018)
no! Matt!

Matt (01:01:07.382)
All the bad people got killed first. So it's really hard. Like, so this is why I think it's unlikely because it's really hard to do without this thing where you kill all the bad people first and then the good people are left and can create Zion. But here's my hopeful message, Sean. But that's what happened in all of those situations. Okay. Here's my, here's, here's my hopeful thing. When I look, when I look around the world and I say,

Shawn (01:01:09.552)
boy.

Shawn (01:01:20.851)
Stop saying kill all the bad people.

David (01:01:28.101)
early third nephi, early third nephi they didn't all die they merged

Matt (01:01:37.294)
Okay, who is overrepresented, like relative to their population, right? So there's 330 million Americans. There is what, like six million of us that are members of the church, maybe nine million in the United States that are members of the church. So we're less than 1%, right? We're like, what, the less than 5 % of the population of the United States is members of the church. And then I say, okay, do we see, if we look at like industry, we look at entertainment, look at any field.

and members of our church are overrepresented, right? There are more members of our church in federal government right now than there are in the general population. Speaking of football, right? There are two NFL football coaches that are members of our church, and there's only what, like 30 teams or something like that. And you can pick any industry, you can pick any field. It feels to me like members of our church as a whole tend to be overachievers. And so the hopeful thing to me is I say, okay,

We have a church full of people like Andy Reid who overachieve in their lives. So maybe we could pull it off. But I think that the deck is stacked against us. I think it's a really hard thing to do to try to persuade people to overcome, to set aside all of those ways that they've been taught to do politics and all of the ways that feel right to them to do politics and say, we're gonna show you a better way. But I mean, I guess why not hope, but I'm skeptical.

Shawn (01:03:02.451)
Well, I mean, Jonathan Rauch, we brought up that guy a couple of weeks ago. Remember, he's the atheist and, you know, lives in a same sex marriage. And yet he's going on a tour throughout the United States, basically saying faith in America is a load bearing wall in our democracy. And the people that are doing it the best are the LDS church. And he's really going throughout preaching that.

Matt (01:03:08.355)
Yeah.

Matt (01:03:25.774)
And are the evangelicals just embracing that message saying, hooray, let's be like the Mormons? That's what we've always wanted to hear. A Democrat telling us to be like Mormons, woo! Yeah.

Shawn (01:03:32.019)
They have not. No, they have not. Of course. Yeah. I mean, I'm just saying there are voices out there that recognize the, I don't know, the.

Matt (01:03:47.448)
We have a message, look, President Nelson and President Oaks have a message. I agree with that. I agree with Brother Griffith that their message is for us as members of the church to do politics differently, and so I'm hopeful that we'll do that.

Shawn (01:04:01.543)
So if you believe though that Matt, Matt, if you believe what I told you in the beginning, like here are some of the reasons that the people that I surveyed in our church think that the Republican party is more aligned with church doctrine and therefore are the ones that will actually apply these principles. Here's the reasons. One, say they're closer, Republicans are closer to family, chastity, and gender.

They're closer to the concept, which is a true principle of equality of opportunity versus equality of outcomes, like the kingdoms of the glory, know, the kingdoms of glory type of concept. He say that they're the concepts around free agency. The Republicans are way more likely to support. say that the method of caring for the poor and the marginalized is more scriptural based on the Republican side than it is on the Democrat side. Those are the reason I asked them, give me the reasons why you think the Republican party aligns more.

David (01:04:48.07)
Come on.

Shawn (01:04:55.719)
Those are the reasons a lot of them gave me. So you're going to have to change that perception before you want, before you get back to we bring people together instead of dividing and that we really focus on the margins.

David (01:04:55.857)
Thanks

Matt (01:04:58.126)
Point it.

David (01:05:01.085)
you

David (01:05:06.877)
I am very happy to be today. I am very happy to be here. I am very happy to be here.

Matt (01:05:10.04)
So the book that's out right now called American Covenant, written by a Jewish person all about the Constitution, he says that the beauty of the Constitution is that it forces compromise. It forces people to work together. And what that means is you don't compromise unless you give up something that you care about in exchange for them giving up something that they care about. And so you don't have to agree with Democrats on it if you're a Republican. You don't have to agree with Democrats on every issue.

You have to be willing to give up something you care about for the greater good of society. so what the prophet I think is trying to tell us to do is to stop thinking about politics in the terms that those parties are telling you. It's not true, by the way, what those people are telling you that that's where the Republican party is. That's not where the Republican party is. That's right, so you have to fight against that perception. So again, back to implicit bias, Sean. It turns out,

David (01:05:58.365)
Thank you.

Shawn (01:06:01.043)
But that's the perception.

Matt (01:06:08.376)
People also have implicit biases towards political parties and they have affect, but they do, Sean, they do. It's true.

Shawn (01:06:11.181)
Okay, if you're go there, then I'm gonna argue back a little bit. You can't argue, where's the quiz we can take? Matt, but you can't argue, for example, hang on, but if members of the church feel that the church has been very clear and has doubled down on the definition of family and the definition of genders, you cannot argue that the Republican party has been more on that side than the Democrat party. That's not biased.

David (01:06:14.899)
Take a quiz.

Matt (01:06:19.745)
I, I, same.

Matt (01:06:32.568)
Did President Oaks say in general conference on issues of contention we seek moderation? And is it not true that the state of Utah has the strictest anti-discrimination laws in support of LGBT community of any state in the United States? So then if the church is going to tell us on these issues of contention about gender and sexuality and all of these things, that we should seek moderation and we should seek.

Shawn (01:06:38.811)
Yes.

Shawn (01:06:47.389)
Yeah. Yes.

Shawn (01:06:56.925)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (01:07:00.209)
like vigorous protections for those communities, then you can't tell me that there's a party that supports the church's position unless that party is willing to do what the church does on those issues.

Shawn (01:07:02.983)
Yeah, that's a good point.

Shawn (01:07:11.815)
Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good... Wait a minute, Cox is a Republican.

Matt (01:07:16.354)
The church led the charge on that. And who led the charge?

Shawn (01:07:19.483)
You think you think a Democrat in charge of governor would have followed the church's charge on that?

Matt (01:07:24.59)
Why, of course, why wouldn't a Democrat follow the church's charge? When the church, every single Democrat in the state of Utah voted for that, of course they want, of course they want the strongest anti-LGBT protections, discrimination laws in the US. And by the way, when the United States, when the United States Congress did the same thing, Mitt Romney is the one that led that charge. And who didn't follow him? Many, Republicans.

Shawn (01:07:27.428)
okay, okay, okay.

David (01:07:30.973)
And I'm going to ahead and close the video.

Shawn (01:07:32.359)
They would have been more likely, yeah. Okay, okay.

Yeah, yeah. OK, OK, but your point.

Shawn (01:07:48.029)
Yeah, but you're making the well, but you're making the point. These Republican governments, the governor Mitt Romney are Republicans who are.

David (01:07:49.149)
Thank you.

Matt (01:07:54.434)
They're members of the church first. They're putting church before party. They're seeking moderation on the contentious issues. They're giving up something that they care about. What did the church get in exchange for those really strong protections in their anti-discrimination language? Religious freedom. That's right. So if we care, do you care more about telling transgender people they can't do something or do you care more about religious freedom? If you care more about religious freedom, then how about you compromise with that? Figure out the middle ground.

Shawn (01:07:58.483)
You

Shawn (01:08:02.842)
Okay

Shawn (01:08:10.182)
religious freedom.

Shawn (01:08:21.521)
I don't know, it seemed like a really easy win because those policies was anti- mean, who's not for anti-discrimination policies for anyone you disagree with?

David (01:08:23.101)
Thank

Matt (01:08:32.622)
49 other states in the United States. Sean, Utah's are the strongest.

Shawn (01:08:37.735)
Yeah, I know, but are there really other states who are like celebrating discrimination? Well, they're not like what? Give me an example.

Matt (01:08:41.42)
Yes, yes, Sean. Look at Oklahoma's laws. Look at Idaho's laws. I mean, I don't know the exact. Yeah, I mean, that's a little bit beyond the topic, but I will say that on on these questions of anti discriminations against the LGBT community, no other Republican state is passing vigorous anti discrimination laws, protecting LGBT rights in working and housing.

Shawn (01:08:47.345)
What is it? Give me an example though, what is it? What are the laws that I don't, I'm ignorant, I'm totally ignorant of it.

Shawn (01:09:05.277)
Yeah, but I'd have to see, but I'd have to see if there were.

Okay, well, I'd have to see, yeah, anyway. Okay, well, I mean, I'm just saying, I think that...

Matt (01:09:15.682)
People have to, Sean, your friends have to start thinking about politics differently. The Republican party is not going to protect them. They need to.

Shawn (01:09:21.277)
But, okay, but even though I may not, I may not agree, but I will defend the, it's an interesting discussion and I want to hear you, you know, your response, but you can't dis okay. You've got a Republican Congress and governor Cox and he does what you just described. Wow. That is good moderation. Okay. That's awesome. That is unifying, right? That is helping folks on the margin. But then they don't, there's no line that gets crossed over that says like it's Donald Trump who comes out and says, look, let's

Let's go with two genders. Like that is what a lot of members of the church see and go, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's what our doctrine says. And so if a Republican party comes out and says that in stark contrast to what the Democrat party says about a wide spectrum of genders, then you can see why the Republican party, or some members of the church may go, oh, the Republicans are more aligned. You see that, yeah?

Matt (01:10:18.742)
I understand the point that you're making and I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. So I'm not going to say more about that, but I will just say Sean about partisanship. The party that you belong to, the party that you affiliate with is a function of a whole lot of things with how you're raised and how you grow up. And when people are making decisions about rep, I'll just tell you an anecdotal story that I think illustrates it. We have a friend who was raised a conservative Republican member of the church.

Shawn (01:10:24.089)
HAHAHAHA

Matt (01:10:48.042)
And as he got older, graduated from BYU, he acknowledged that he's gay. He married a man, moved to Washington, D.C., left the church. And then I was talking to him one time and he said, when I moved to Washington, D.C., I recognized that I needed to register as a Democrat because I wouldn't have any voice in the politics in Washington, D.C. if I was a Republican, because all of the real choices were made in Democratic primaries.

And he told me that the choice to register as a Democrat was harder for him than leaving the church and was harder for him than telling people about his sexuality. It was a hard thing for him because it's a part of our identity, Sean. And this is true for almost everybody, but it is, but it is for your, but it is Sean. It is for all of your friends and family who are Republicans and members of this church. I asked them, how would it feel to register as a Democrat? And they'd be like,

Shawn (01:11:28.573)
What? Why?

Shawn (01:11:34.397)
shouldn't be. It should not be, but it should not be. Yes, it's a great point you make it is for our friends.

And Matt, was the exact point I was trying to make was in your question is how do we, do we have hope that the church can change the ethos? I agree with you, that's what my point was. No, I think it's really baked into the ethos in the wrong way that LDS member means Republicanism. Yeah, that's absolutely, and that's part of our message for the Latter Day Alliance, right? Is no, don't tie your worldview

Matt (01:11:47.04)
I couldn't do it. It would be painful.

Shawn (01:12:11.987)
to some man-made, stupid, ever-changing, power-driven, money-driven party. No, the lens that you need look through, the perspective is through scripture and through prophets. And let's look at principles. It's not through these political parties. They're not our saviors. They're not, yeah, I mean, that's the message of the Latter-day Lens too, right?

David (01:12:32.349)
I like the adaptability of those two things from... Do we call him Judge Griffiths? Mr. Griffiths? What's his title? I don't know. Brother Griffiths. In whatever... If we're talking economics, if we're talking reproductive rights, if we're talking immigration, whatever the specific policy, whatever the specific item on the agenda is, you've got to use those muscles. The come together muscles and the look on the margin muscles.

Matt (01:12:38.806)
Yeah, sure. Sure. Judge the former Honorable Justice Griffith.

Shawn (01:12:40.839)
Brother, Brother Griffith.

David (01:13:02.595)
or you know you're doing it wrong. Whatever the party is telling you, if you're not using those muscles, it's at best a temporary fleeting thing and somebody else will change it and we're not really moving forward.

Matt (01:13:15.65)
I love it, David. We're gonna let you have the last word. Hey David, thanks so much for joining us this week. It was really good to have you with us.

Shawn (01:13:20.659)
Yeah, that was great, David. That was fun.

David (01:13:21.745)
Nice to be here. Thank you.

Matt (01:13:23.99)
Listener, we're glad that you were with us too. Let us know what you think and we'll talk to you again next week.