Episode 15 // The Call for Peacemakers in a Polarized Political Environment with Judge Thomas Griffith

Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube.

On this episode of the Proclaim Peace Podcast, hosts Jennifer and Patrick are joined by Judge Thomas Griffith to delve into the topic of politics and its impact on peace. They discuss how political rhetoric, especially during election years, can disrupt our sense of peace. Despite the intense reporting on political polarization, they explore how we can navigate these challenges to promote peace in our lives and communities. Join them as they tackle this important aspect of peacemaking.

Timestamps

[00:02:14] Political polarization and hope.

[00:03:29] Perception Gap and Polarization.

[00:08:56] Politics and government transitions.

[00:12:31] Associating peace with building Zion.

[00:15:08] The importance of the rule of law.

[00:19:01] Societal Flourishing and the Rule of Law.

[00:22:38] Principles of government.

[00:30:11] The importance of consent and equality.

[00:33:40] Being informed as a citizen.

[00:37:23] American democracy challenges.

[00:43:07] Latter-day Saints' role in unity.

[00:45:48] Constitutional government and moderation.

[00:50:24] The Constitution creates new citizens.

[00:53:01] Bargaining over liberty and equality.

[00:57:26] Creating a multicultural society.

[01:01:32] Embracing the true nature of things.

Transcript

(00:03-00:06) Jennifer Thomas: Welcome to the Proclaim Peace Podcast. I'm Jennifer Thomas.
(00:06-00:15) Patrick Mason: And I'm Patrick Mason. And this is the podcast where we apply principles of the gospel and read the Book of Mormon to become better peacemakers. Hey, Jen. 

(00:15-00:18) Jennifer Thomas: Hey, Patrick, how are you doing today?

(00:18-00:20) Patrick Mason: I'm doing great. And yourself?

(00:20-00:23) Jennifer Thomas: I'm doing great. I'm buckled up for this conversation.

(00:23-00:57) Patrick Mason: So let's go. Well, that's the thing. So okay, we've been doing this for a few months now. We've got more than a dozen episodes under our belts. So Thanks to everybody who's been with us and listening this whole time. Also, thanks if this is your first episode, welcome aboard. We're glad to have you. And we have talked about peace in lots of different ways. We've talked about it at the interpersonal level. We've talked about kind of global dimensions and in different places around the world. But there is one very important aspect of peace that we have fairly studiously avoided up until this point.

(00:58-01:17) Jennifer Thomas: And it's time to talk about it. It's probably the thing that for many of us is most disruptive of our peace right now, and that's politics. Specifically today, we're gonna talk a little bit about domestic politics here in the United States. Some of you, maybe Patrick, you've even heard that there's a presidential election coming up later this year.

(01:17-01:21) Patrick Mason: I've heard something along those lines. Yes, yes, vaguely.

(01:21-02:32) Jennifer Thomas: It's intruded on the peripheral of your life. Well, Unfortunately, election years, they always ratchet this up, the political rhetoric in our country coming from politicians, candidates, and other highly partisan actors. But I think we can all agree that we've been living through several fairly unpleasant years of intense reporting about political polarization that tends to get lifted up and highlighted specifically during election years. We are told that we are falling apart at the seams, but we are here today to share with you a little bit of a note of hope. Through my work with MWAG, I've attended numerous meetings and conferences that reveal that while those on the extremes, including some with significant political power, are growing further apart and increasing their use of harmful rhetoric, the majority of Americans, you and me, are actually closer to each other than social media, the news, and yes, many of our elected officials in D.C. would have us believe. Of course, polarization can be dangerous and really problematic, especially when we are constantly consuming media that makes it feel worse than it actually is. But we would argue that there are some reasons that we should be hopeful.

(02:32-03:28) Patrick Mason: Okay, so tell me more about this, Jen, because I want to hear more of this hope, because a lot of what I do hear. You don't believe me. I want to believe you, okay? Because so much of what I hear and actually experience, just on an anecdotal level, is that it's not just that people disagree, right? I mean, that's always been a feature of the system. That's just part of American democracy, right? So it's not just red states and blue states and Democrats and Republicans and so forth, but it seems to me And I have read other reporting on this. Maybe the reporting is right, maybe it's wrong. But it's not just that people disagree, but it's almost as if we live in completely different universes, like completely different realities. We're not disagreeing about the same reality and then whether our taxes should be 26% or 28%, right? It's like we're disagreeing about fundamental reality. So, okay, so give me some hope there. Am I wrong about this?

(03:29-05:23) Jennifer Thomas: So I'm not going to be a complete Pollyanna. I know there are absolutely concrete examples of deep polarization, and this is a critical election year when we have to make some pretty important decisions about the direction our nation is going to go. But there's also increasing evidence about what has been called a perception gap between what we hear on the news and see on social media and super hyper-polarized news sites and what is actually a reality. For example, while the most partisan politically active Americans have very deeply distorted perceptions of the other side, the majority of us in the middle believe that our differences aren't so great that we can't come together. Research is showing us that three quarters of Americans fall into that latter category, And we could do an entire podcast about that, but I just want to share one quick touch point. And that is a quote from a report called The Perception Gap by the organization More in Common. And it is, someone scrolling through a social media news feed or switching on cable TV or talk radio could be convinced that we're in a country heading towards civil war. This study shows that an important source of this polarization is the false beliefs, false beliefs people have of their political opponents. the proportion of people who share similar views about many of our most hotly debated issues is greater than most Americans realize. So while Americans do indeed hold different values and disagree on key issues, we actually underestimate how much more we have in common." So I just wanted to start today by sharing that there is possibility for hope and that That isn't going to change the fact that we're going to experience conflict with friends and family about politics this year. But we do want to lean into the idea of peace and what are the actual concrete things that we can do or the systems that we can support as political conflict is seeping into virtually every aspect of our lives? What can we do to bring peace?

(05:23-06:49) Patrick Mason: OK, so that is encouraging. And I'm thinking about a conversation I had just this weekend, actually, with a woman that I met who is one of our regular listeners. So thank you to all of our regular listeners. And she reported to me that she'd been really inspired by everything that she'd been hearing from us and is trying to apply this and implement these peacemaking principles in her life. But she has a brother that she grew up with, loves very much, who is on the complete opposite side of the political spectrum as her. And they disagree and every conversation in recent months and years has come back to politics. And she says, you know, we just see the world so differently. It is like we're on different planets. And she says, I'm kind of happy to just agree to disagree. And maybe we just agree not to talk about politics, right? But he insists. And he says, this is a big part of who I am. And if you can't accept this, right, then it means you don't accept me. She's really worried about the relationship for her. It's less about the politics than what it's done to this relationship between her and her brother. And so this is where politics, whether or not you're a political activist, whether or not this is what gets you out of bed in the morning, it is all around us. It seeps into our workplaces, into our church congregations, into our families, into our homes. It really is unavoidable.

(06:50-07:59) Jennifer Thomas: You know, again, I don't mean to be Pollyanna, even though the majority of us are in the middle and are closer to others. We have relationships with people who are on the extremes, who believe extreme things and believe that they cannot make peace with them. But I think we so we all have to agree that if we're going to talk about peace and peace building in 2024, we're going to be quite naive if we're not willing to lean into it and talk about politics. We're going to acknowledge up front to our listeners. We know this is tricky territory. But we hope we can keep your trust as over the coming months, we try to offer a bit of light into what many people, some experts, some average citizens are feeling as they deal explicitly with politics. We promise this won't be our last episode about this, especially as we lead up to what proves to be a very contentious and even potentially violent election season in the fall. Our goal continues to be to figure out how we can mine sacred scripture, the Book of Mormon, and other resources, including the incredible expertise of our guests, to help give you some tools to be better peace builders in a time of political conflict.

(07:59-08:21) Patrick Mason: Yeah, so I think what we can't promise to people is that there's going to be some magic formula, right? I mean, you know, we can't wave a magic wand. We've not yet won the Nobel Peace Prize. We've not yet figured all of this out. So I think we can make progress. I think there's a lot of lessons and principles that we can learn, but we don't have it all figured out either.

(08:21-08:45) Jennifer Thomas: No, neither of us are perfect at this. And we both have relationships with people where this thing that we've just shared is very much the issue. So we're learning alongside you and sometimes making mistakes on the way. But we just want to commit to you that we are both really committed to building our capacity as peacemakers in this period, in this moment of political conflict. And to do that, we want to bring more light than heat to the subject.

(08:45-10:03) Patrick Mason: Okay, so with all of that as kind of introduction, and forgive the kind of lengthier introduction than normal, we want to talk about politics. And the Book of Mormon text that we want to use to jump off of is Mosiah chapter 29, in which the Nephites transition their government from a monarchy, from a kingship, to a system of judges ruled by law. And as we are thinking about this, And these passages, we couldn't think of anybody better to help us through this and to talk about what it means for us today than our friend Judge Thomas Griffith. Judge Griffith, or Tom, as we'll call him today, was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which is the second highest court in the land, by President George W. Bush in 2005. He retired from that court in 2020. And the following year, President Joe Biden appointed him to the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court. He also had the honor of introducing Supreme Court Justice Katonji Brown Jackson during her Senate confirmation hearings. He's a graduate of Brigham Young University and the University of Virginia School of Law. And before his appointment to the D.C. Circuit Court, he served as Senate legal counsel during the impeachment trials of President Clinton. And so he's been in the trenches on some very contentious things.

(10:03-10:05) Jennifer Thomas: Highly contentious environments, yeah.

(10:05-10:54) Patrick Mason: Yes, exactly. He was also general counsel of Brigham Young University, so he's been in those spaces as well. He's also spent the past several years, especially since his retirement, traveling far and wide across the country, talking about the importance of the Constitution, constitutional principles, and we hope to get into some of that today. He's also been really active in projects outside the United States. in helping to establish and maintain the rule of law in places, especially across Europe and Asia. So Tom is a great friend. He is an expert. He's someone who we admire deeply, somebody who has spent years thinking about and practicing these kinds of things and a commitment to a peaceful, healthy rule of law and democracy. So we're thrilled to have Tom Griffith with us today. Tom, welcome to the Proclaimed Peace Podcast.

(10:54-10:55) Jennifer Thomas: We are so excited to have you.

(10:56-11:03) Patrick Mason: Yeah, we're thrilled. So we always begin by asking our guests the same question. How do you define peace?

(11:03-12:31) Thomas Griffith: So your audience ought to know that you sent me questions in advance to think about, I guess, so I wouldn't be blindsided. And this is the one I've struggled with more than any. I mean, the easiest answer is absence of conflict, right? And maybe that's sufficient. Maybe that's enough. But I think not. I mean, when President Nelson asks us to be peacemakers, he's saying something more than just avoid conflict, right? He's talking about something positive. And so as I've tried to think about, what does that mean? To me, it reflects a generosity towards others, that I'm situated such that I'm thinking of myself I don't do this, by the way, but this is what I aspire to do. I'm thinking of myself as someone who's looking for ways to help others, right? And I think that's the orientation of a peacemaker, which, by the way, that's a definition of spirituality that I once heard Elder Eyring give. He said, true spirituality is when we think of ourselves as people who are looking for ways to help other people. And so I think that captures what I think a peacemaker is, at least what I someday hope to be.

(12:31-12:42) Jennifer Thomas: I love that because it feels a little bit exactly like you're associating peace with building Zion, that basically you're creating a universe in which your heart is unified with the people around you, right? Where you're trying

(12:43-13:43) Thomas Griffith: I think that's absolutely it. That's absolutely it. And then that, maybe getting ahead of myself, and that that becomes your primary spiritual obligation, actually. That's number one. That's how you define it. That's the brilliance of, the brilliance of Elder Eyring's insight and also how disruptive that is to traditional notions of spirituality, right? If I really thought that to be a spiritual being, to be a disciple of Christ meant that my primary obligation was to live each day to look for ways to help other people. And I don't drink coffee. That seems to me to be, that's a goal worthy to aspire to. I orient myself in terms of, what does it mean to be spiritual? Well, I don't do this, I don't do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, those are important. Those are important in spiritual formation. The real big one is, look for ways to help other people. That's our thing.

(13:43-13:53) Patrick Mason: I seem to remember somebody saying that by this you would know that all people are my disciples, or all people would know that you're my disciples if you have loved one for another.

(13:53-15:54) Jennifer Thomas: So let's jump right in to the hard stuff. But I actually think you've landed on something that helps us transition to this really easily. In Mosiah chapter 29, King Mosiah convinces people to abandon the monarchy. And I think one of the reasons he does this is because monarchies, at least as they've traditionally been conceived of, elevate automatically one person over another. One person is superior to all others, and then it sets up a really rigid hierarchy in society. And so I think there are reasons that Mosiah, as he's trying to move his people towards a more Christ-like organization of themselves, moves away from a monarchy. And he decides to replace that monarchy with judges, which is not, and we need to make sure for our listeners that these aren't exactly like our judges today. They're much more like judges in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew Bible, in terms of how they oriented themselves to the people. But both then and now, I think it's really important for us to start our conversation, talking about what those judges oriented themselves to if it if I'm a monarch, I basically, to some degree, my role my rule is law, right? Whatever I say is law. But if I'm a judge, by definition, I have to be conversing with a set of laws that people know that I'm accountable to. So they decided basically as people that the law was going to be agreed upon, binding to everybody, and that was how the judges would judge people rather than caprices of the king. One thing I want to just start us out by talking about is, while our government is very different today, it is similar in that it is based on a rule of law. And that is one of the things that has made our society quite peaceful in many ways. And I'm wondering if you could share with our listeners from your perspective, both as a jurist and someone who has done extensive traveling around the world and interacting with other governments, Why is the rule of law so important to building a peaceful society? And what are the things that flow towards citizens when they live in a society where the basis of government is the rule of law?

(15:54-20:49) Thomas Griffith: Yeah, that's a big question. That's a big question. I'm tempted to quibble a little bit with your criticism of monarchy. But as Patrick knows, I'm like, Ancestry 23 tells me I'm like 99.9% British Isles. Like, I'm just the most boring person. No Ashkenazi, no West African, no Native American, all the cool stuff. I don't have any of it. And so I can actually put in a word for the British monarchy. It's a little bit different than that, but let's not go there. No, the general point, no, obviously, the general point is, We have the rule of law as over against the rule of a leader. We know from human history that when you give power to an individual, there always have to be checks and safeguards because of the fall of nature of humankind. The benefit of the rule of law is that if you have an autocracy or you have system where the ruler decides what's right and what's wrong. The danger is, well the predictable result will be, that that ruler will inflict his or her own sense of what's right and wrong on you as an individual. And we distrust that sort of relationship between a leader and a subject or a citizen. The beauty of the rule of law is that you create the rules by which everyone lives, right? Everyone lives. And then it's applied across the board. And so it's the law. The law determines what the correct standard of what the correct behavior is. Not the king, not the queen. It's the law that decides that. And then that is applied to the individual. So you're trying to remove the caprice that comes from an individual visiting judgment upon you. So this is not something theoretical. We have experience with this. And we have experienced that when time to organize ourselves according to this principle. Laws that are established and then people are judged by whether they keep those laws or not, as opposed to a leader deciding what the rules are and then applying it to you. When societies organize themselves in this way, there are several good things that happen, right? This is where societies flourish. This is where people feel safe. and secure and treated fairly. And they have a sense of liberty, that there are things that they can do knowing that they will not be the subject of, you know, a monarch's caprice. They have that zone of freedom in which they can act. And when you put all those things together, societies tend to flourish. And we can think of reasons why that would be, but that's demonstrably true. This isn't just some theoretical notion. We have seen this over the last, you know, 250, 300 years, that when societies organize themselves around the rule of law, and that carries with it things like a limited role for government, and a maximum role for liberty, a real effort at fairness and equality. When you put all those components together, human flourishing occurs on a scale that arguably has never happened in the world before. Now, no one has gotten it just right. No one has gotten it just right. is I'm going to quote two Democrats now. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I don't do partisan politics. But we've never gotten this quite right. But as President Clinton used to say, there's nothing that's wrong with America that can't be fixed by that which is right about America. And President Biden has said about these aspirations that we have, we've never attained them. But we've never given up on them. And that's the thing. So I don't want to paint too rosy a picture. But no, we know. When you have societies that are built around the rule of law that insulate the citizen, insulate the citizen or the subject individual from arbitrary and capricious action by government, good things happen.

(20:49-20:49) null: Good things happen.

(20:49-22:16) Patrick Mason: Well, and it's interesting. That seems to be that the main principle that emerges especially from Restoration Scripture that comes from Joseph Smith. We talk about Mosiah 29 here, this kind of shift, and it's not exactly a representative democracy. The Nephites aren't 21st century Americans. They don't have the U.S. Constitution. But there is this shift away from kingship. What we do get, especially in Joseph Smith's revelations, like Section 98 of the Doctrine and Covenants, You know, the revelation's kind of agnostic on the particulars of the government. It doesn't say, like, there need to be three branches or there need to be, you know, these particular things. But what it does say is it affirms that law of the land, which is constitutional, supporting that principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges, that that's the thing that it says belongs to all mankind. That seems to be the universal principle that the revelation is trying to bring about or highlight. So what do you see? recognizing that different countries do it differently because of their own culture, their traditions, their histories, et cetera. What are the foundational elements of good government? What are the principles that we should all agree on regardless of where we live or our political affiliation or things like that? And then also that leads to the question of what parts of it are up for grabs? What parts are up for contestation? What's fair for us to argue about?

(22:17-24:27) Thomas Griffith: Well, it's a great question. I'm not a political philosopher, but I am an American, and I'm a Lincoln guy, right? And Lincoln was one, perhaps more than anyone, who taught us that the Declaration of Independence is it. That's the driving force. We'll get to the Constitution later. I'm all for the Constitution. But it's interesting, in the Declaration of Independence, there's no prescribed form of government, right? In fact, there's historical evidence to suggest that a number of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were hoping for a continuation of the monarchy. They thought the British monarchy was fine, just needed tweaking. So it isn't until we get to the Constitution that we reject, we totally reject that. But in the Declaration of Independence itself, I mean, there are a couple of principles that I think, as an American, I've committed to, but I don't think I hope this isn't parochial. I think they're also universal. And the first one is the consent of the governed, right? The government has, at some level, and hopefully a very important level, those who are governed have to consent to the system and to the rule. And so I really think that's the number one. The other two principles that I say are critical are liberty and equality, right? That you're committed to liberty and equality. Now, here you go. Yes, where are things contested? That's where they're contested, right? What does that mean, liberty and equality? Well, we've been arguing about that for a long time, and we'll argue about it more, and that's fine as long as you're committed to those principles, right? I mean, to me, you've got to be committed to liberty and equality, the consent of the governed, and then let's figure out what those are. And they will take different shapes and forms based on tradition, based on local circumstances. But in my mind, those are the three principles that have got to be there for government to succeed.

(24:27-25:22) Patrick Mason: So I think that's fantastic. And I wonder if you could follow up. I mean, you know, you've spent so many years, you know, doing this actively, especially in your role as a judge, right? Cases come to you, and that's what people are arguing about, right? How do we interpret equality? What does liberty actually look like? And you, especially on the D.C. Circuit, you sat on a panel of judges. It wasn't just you. There were multiple people who were hearing these cases, oftentimes disagreeing, and then they would vote, right, and so forth. So what are those conversations like? I wonder if you can, you know, kind of pull back the curtain a little bit to let people hear about what is it like for judges to disagree on the interpretation of some of these things and application of these things while remaining and retaining a real fundamental commitment to the rule of law, to liberty, equality, and consent to the governed.

(25:22-30:11) Thomas Griffith: So I was on an inter — it's going to sound pretty wonky here — I was on an intermediate appellate court, right? Wasn't on the Supreme Court. And so you don't get to do a lot of free-forming on an intermediate appellate court. Your primary responsibility is to follow the law as it's laid down by the Supreme Court, even when you disagree with it. Yeah, so most of those discussions would center around what did the Supreme Court mean in this case about liberty and what the Supreme Court mean in this case about equality and then to follow that. So it was less a salon-like atmosphere of figuring out what liberty really means and more trying to figure out what the court meant about that. The cases where the most significant case that I can recall involving that was a rather notorious case. It's the Shelby County case where the Supreme Court reversed the decision of my court and the panel that I was on and struck down a provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that took away from the federal government the power to monitor closely elections in areas that had in the past shown awful racial discrimination. Anyway, so that's the closest case that I can think of where we were certainly trying to follow Supreme Court precedent. In doing so, the way we interpreted that precedent was that Congress had the power The extraordinary power which it exercised in the Voting Rights Act to say the federal government gets to run your, in fact, gets to run your elections because you've got a bad track record in terms of racial discrimination in voting. Upholding Congress's power to do that. because of a sense that the law gave Congress the power to do that, to eliminate discrimination in voting. That's probably the case that I wrestled with it most. And on that one, there were three judges on the panel. Two of us voted to uphold the act. We were overturned by the Supreme Court. The third judge thought that Congress had exceeded its powers, and we had a vigorous and collegial debate over several months before arriving at that decision. It turns out I was the swing vote. I have a hard time making up my mind. And so more than once, I was the third one who hadn't decided yet. And so that's a case where I listened to both sides, long time, had many discussions and conversations with both judges. Which, by the way, that's an important thing to understand. Even though we end up seeing this thing very differently, We had discussions over lunch. We had memos to one another. And it was all done with a real sense that the other judge was acting in good faith. No one was there trying to help one party over the other. Anyway, I ended up siding with the majority. We were overturned by the Supreme Court. We knew we were going to be. There's a long wind up to this pitch. What finally persuaded me to cast that vote, I thought it was following the law, and what finally persuaded me was that I didn't want to be the first judge in America to help strike down the most important piece of legislation in the history of the United States maybe, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, I thought, you know, we can let the folks up on First Street, let one of them be that, but that's not going in my Wikipedia. I'm being a little facetious here, but no, but that came out of a sense of, We had a civil war over this, right? We had a civil war over our failure to live up to the ideals of equality. And in the Reconstruction Amendments, we the people gave the Congress of the United States extraordinary powers to stomp that out. And I thought that Congress should be allowed to exercise those powers. Five justices on the Supreme Court disagreed. And so the Voting Rights Act was gutted.

(30:11-31:29) Jennifer Thomas: So I love that you framed these three essential things as consent of the governed, liberty and equality. And as you both have been talking, I've been thinking a lot about how much I think those three things actually undergird very profoundly a peaceful society. I think that absent any one of those things in large measure, people tend to not necessarily feel peaceful, right? If they don't feel like they have liberty and freedom, if they don't feel that they are seen as equals before the law or in society and don't have access to resolve disputes equally, and if they don't feel that they have access to make sure that the government is responsive to them, right? That they truly can exercise a measure of consent. And so I'm just wondering what you would encourage our listeners, because we want the people listening to this to know how to act. What are some of the ways that they as individuals can work in our society as citizens to promote all three of those things? Like how can they help promote liberty? How can they promote equality? And how can they promote making sure that we consent to the ways that we're governed?

(31:29-35:35) Thomas Griffith: Well, the easy answer is to vote, you know, to be educated. I mean, the straightforward answer is to become informed and to vote. Now, that's easy, but it's hard. I remember several years ago in my ward, a wonderful sister approached me and said, hey, Tom, you know, I've got a large family. I'm really busy. But I really want to be better informed than I am now. So do you have advice for me? She said, and here's the advice I'm looking for. Is there someplace I can go to that in 15 minutes a day, I can just figure out what I need to figure out? And I wish I could have said, oh, yeah. Go to this place and, you know, 15 minutes of reading the Christian Science Monitor and you get to, but the hard answer is no, this is hard work, right? And so there's really bad news along with good news. And the bad news is it takes time to keep up on, you know, matters of governance. And that's hard work because never has there been one single source that you can go to that will give you an objective view. That's just not possible. And so the only response to that is you have to go to lots of different places and get lots of different views. to become educated and informed. That's really bad news, because most of us are really busy. But I'm afraid that's the price of citizenship. Our system is based on citizen participation. We're not subjects. We're citizens. And let's go back to Aristotle. What does that mean? No, that means active involvement. So there's no easy way to do it. There is an easy answer. And the easy answer is to Be informed and vote and be involved. So I will say one thing about that. And this is easy as well. But if your primary source of information is social media, cable news, and or talk radio, stop it. No, you're being played. I mean, just realize that you're being played. In the 19th century, newspapers were all political organs, right? They were totally political organs in the 19th century. Then in the beginning of the 20th century, we get this professionalization of newspapers, and you get schools of journalism created. You have professional standards. And they got a little bit better. They're still by. They got a little bit better. But what we have now in social media, cable, and talk radio, that's what all the stuff was in the 19th century. They're just outlets for particular viewpoints. And I'm not saying don't go to them. Actually, I would say that, don't go to them. But don't go to them for information upon which you're going to base your judgment on what's going on in the world. they're part of what Arthur Brooks calls the outrage industrial complex. Utah's governor, Spencer Cox, has a great line on this where he says, my wife and I used to watch cable all day long. We've been sober for the last decade. They swore it off. That's one thing not to do as a citizen, is that don't rely on those sources of information. The world in which I live, everybody reads, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, right? Everybody reads the Atlantic and the National Review. This is the cost of citizenship. It takes time.

(35:35-36:27) Patrick Mason: It takes time. Okay, so as part of this transition that Mosiah makes, he's optimistic about the rule of law because he actually believes that the people can live up to it. It's kind of along the lines of what you're saying. Hey, most of the time, the voice of the people, most people choose the right thing most of the time. And he says, that's when government's going to work and so forth. But he says, boy, things get rough when the voice of the people choose otherwise, when they don't choose liberty, when they don't choose equality and so forth. How would you assess the voice of the people these days? Let's just talk about the United States. not just about the rule of law, but about these principles we've been talking about, the functioning of a peaceful, healthy, stable democracy. How would you assess the state of American democracy?

(36:27-37:35) Thomas Griffith: Well, all the social science research suggests it's not good, right? I mean, and we've all heard all of these surveys where people display just a shocking lack of knowledge about the fundamental principles of the rule of law, of the Constitution, of our unique form of of government. So that's pretty discouraging, right? That's pretty discouraging. Having said that, I want to be hopeful that there's a history of goodness in the American people and prudence. But I don't know. I want to be hopeful about that. We're living in such a polarized time where the sources of information upon which people are relying are so untrustworthy that it, frankly, it worries me a great deal. In fact, I really think the Constitution is hanging by a thread. Just to choose one metaphor that, you know, I just thought of myself, right?

(37:36-37:39) Patrick Mason: No, I do. I do. It's a good phrase. It might catch on.

(37:39-41:03) Thomas Griffith: It might catch on somewhere. But I believe that. And I'm deeply worried about it because we are so polarized today. We've always been divided and disagree. That's fine. We're Americans. We better disagree. I don't trust any decision. that isn't the product of disagreement, whether that comes out of the White House, the Congress, 47 East South Temple, that's church headquarters, by the way, or my bishop's office. I want to know that there's been a vigorous discussion before a decision is made. So I'm all for that. The problem isn't that we disagree right now. The problem is that there's a level of contempt with the disagreement that is new. This is new. Social science research tells us that the level of enmity, the affect of polarization, the hatred that one side has for another, we've never measured it. It's never measured this bad before. We didn't have social science research running around in 1859, but we have since then. So that's what I worry about. most is that the voice of the people today, at least the people who are speaking out loud, is so vitriolic. It's so filled with hatred and contempt that I don't trust the voice of the people when it's that. Now, here's the good news. Here's the good news. Apparently, most of the voices you hear are from 15% extreme on the left and 15% extreme on the right. And you've heard the phrase that's being described for everyone in between. It's the exhausted majority. And there are some little seeds sprouting up out there of hope that let us think that maybe, maybe people will respond to a more positive message in this regard. You know, many of your listeners, I assume, have ties to the state of Utah in one form or another. And I'm not a partisan. This isn't an endorsement right now, but Governor Cox is really sold on this idea of disagree better of of learning how to disagree with one another without the hatred. And he did those series of ads with his opponent, Chris Peterson. Stanford Center for Democracy did a deep dive into viewers' responses to those, and the approval ratings go sky high. So here's my hope. My hope is that if we have leaders who appeal to that to those better angels of our nature, they may discover that political benefits come from that. And if that's true, we don't know yet. It's untested yet. But if that's true, there's my hope. There's my hope. But as long as we are in this sort of death spiral of contempt one for another, I'm not optimistic.

(41:03-42:26) Jennifer Thomas: So I'm going to be the voice of optimism here. And I am going to say that while agreeing with absolutely everything you've said, we're in a period of remarkably closely contested elections, right? Lots of polarization. And I would argue that to anyone listening to this podcast, this is your moment to shine. Because if you've got a highly contested election and if you've got a space in which elections are being decided by a very small number of people, This is the opportunity for peacemakers to rise up. And if they will, they are often the people that will detach from politics because they find them not pleasant or discursive. They just don't like it. But this is exactly the moment in which people who are pushing for what you've just described, you know, pushing for a more moderated discourse, that this is the time when citizens can come forward and vote. and do it in a way that is much less partisan and is much less ideological, but rewards those who truly appear to be working for the common good. And so I think that that's one thing I would hope that all of our listeners would realize, is that we actually do have the opportunity in this environment, when margins are so slim, to be significant influencers of the ways that elections turn out.

(42:26-42:32) Thomas Griffith: So, Jen, I am well rebuked. No, you are absolutely right.

(42:32-42:34) Jennifer Thomas: I was not intending to rebuke you. No, no, no.

(42:34-44:55) Thomas Griffith: No, you are absolutely right. And I have had about a dozen conversations in the last 18 months or so with some leading thought leaders in America across the political spectrum. And they've all said something to me that was stunning. to me, and I'll share with your listeners, these people on the right and on the left have said, I'm not certain that we can pull out of this mess, but if we can, it's going to be the Latter-day Saints. No, they really have said that. It's got to be the Latter-day Saints. They've read what President Nelson has said, they've read what President Oaks has said about moderating, and they know the social cohesion that we have. Some of them, Jonathan Rauch at Brookings is writing this fabulous book right now that has a couple of chapters about us and how, about Latter-day Saints and how unique Latter-day Saint social structure of the ward creates people who can do this and that maybe nobody else can do it. So, yes, thank you for reminding me. This is our moment, and what better way to bear witness of the risen Christ than to say, this is what we do. We don't drink coffee, and we're peacemakers. We're peacemakers. So, no. Thank you for pulling me out of my gloom and doom. But I'll introduce a little bit more gloom and doom. But we need to do it. We need to do it. No, this is a call to action. It needs to happen. And now we need to step up to this. And so one of these thought leaders whose name I can't reveal. And he hadn't gotten the memo about being Latter-day Saints and not Mormons. He said this. He said, our hope, our only hope is the Mormons, he said, because they are conservative without the hate. the hate. So, um, sorry about the conservative thing, Patrick, but anyway, that was his, that was his, that was his characterization of, of Latter-day Saints. And I think, I think there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of truth to that, so.

(44:55-46:00) Jennifer Thomas: Well, and, and I think those three things you've talked about play a really important role in our theology, right? This idea of consenting to, to, and having agency, this idea of truly treating people as equals and trying to elevate them so that they have the richest and best possible experience here on earth. And then also, you know, just making sure that we are promoting a government that protects the interests, particularly of minorities, remembering always that we are one. Right? And so in this way, constitutional government is our friend. And it is absolutely, I think, necessary that we do everything we can to preserve the rule of law and constitutional government, because it will protect us as a minority religion. And so you had promised the Constitution would come back up, and I'm hoping that we can get you to talk a little bit about it now. So I know that one of your favorite phrases comes from President Oaks, where he talks about constitutional government. And he says, on contested issues, we seek to moderate and to unify. And I'm wondering if you could share in the context of the Constitution why moderation and unity is so important to this system of government.

(46:00-51:58) Thomas Griffith: Thank you. So first of all, let's remember when he gave that. That was an Easter Sunday sermon at General Conference. And I can remember being a bit surprised, but you know, he knew it was Easter. He was aware. He's an apostle whose primary responsibility is bear witness of Christ. And yet he took that slot that day to give this talk. I've got to believe, now this is just my interpretation. I've got to believe that that was a signal just how critical he thought this was. And that's the money line of the talk. I mean, a lot of people have taken that talk and folks on the right say, hey, he's supporting us. But they seem to overlook What I think is the money line of the talk, and I'm pretty sure he thinks it is as well, and that is, on contested issues, we should seek to moderate and unify. That is, to me, the best explanation of what the Constitution requires of citizens that I've ever seen. Just this month, a new book has been published by Yuval Levin at the American Enterprise Institute. Yuval Levin is, in my view, one of the most, if not the most, consequential conservative public intellectuals today. And he's written a book on the Constitution that's called American Covenant, colon, How the Constitution Unified Our Nation and Could Again. It is a 250, 300-page work. It's pretty readable. But it's all a variation on this theme of what President Trump said. I mean, it really ought to be titled, On Contested Issues We Should See. It's just explaining how the structure of the Constitution and the purpose of the Constitution is to do just that, just that. The purpose of the Constitution is to create a system of government where we come to the bargaining table and we compromise and accommodate. That's what the Constitution imagines. That's what it wants to have happen. And so if you're, if we're not… What it was the result of. Exactly. No, look at what happened to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. It's exactly that. They compromised for the sake of unity. And they made some awful compromises, right, that we're probably not comfortable with today. And I'm not here to defend the particular compromise, but just look what they did. They compromised on some things that were really important to them for the sake of unity. Many people have pointed out the first word in the Constitution of the United States. is we. It's we. It's supposed to create community. And Yuval Levin's brilliant insight is that If you want to support and defend the Constitution, that's what you do. You bargain with others, and you compromise with others. He points out that the Constitution creates what he calls a mitigated majority rule, a mitigated majority rule. In other words, our system does not allow pure majority rule, right? We've got a whole body. That's what the whole grand compromise is about, House of Representatives, Senate. You know, we've got all of these provisions in the Constitution that work against pure majority rule. They're there to protect the losers. They're there to protect the minority. And so you've got to bargain and negotiate. So, so Yuval Levin would disagree with my chicken little constitution is hanging sort of thing, because he says kind of what you were saying, Jen, and that is, We're in a period now of closely contested elections. And no side, because of the way this system works, no side that has 50% plus one is going to be able to run roughshod over the others. So that's why he says this is not the most important election in the history of the country. I actually think it is. But he says it's not because he thinks right now the Constitution will protect us from that sort of extremism. But the major point I want to make is the Constitution creates a new type of citizen. It creates a citizen who bargains and compromises to rule. And again, if you're not willing to do that, you can pick up your pocket copy of the Constitution Okay. And you can wave it around. You're supposed to have it in here and pull it out. And this is what we do in Washington. Everyone's got one. You pull it. And, you know, and you can say, you know what the Constitution means? The Constitution is about freedom of religion. The Constitution is about freedom of speech. Constitution's about equal protection. Constitution's about guns. You know, you can say all of those things, but in each of those instances, you're looking at the trees. You're missing the forest. The forest, Yuval Levin points out, is it creates a structure of government in which we sit down at a table and bargain with one another. And if you have that mindset, there's certain patterns of speech you don't fall into. You don't call. your opponent's deplorables. I'm sorry, Mrs. Clinton, you don't do that. You just don't do that to your fellow citizens. Mr. Trump, you know, you don't call your opponents vermin. No, that's not how you talk to people if you're going to sit down and bargain with them. So anyway, so I think President Oaks' little phrase captures that better than anything that I've seen. So my pitch to all of us is, you want to support and defend the Constitution? Bargain and compromise. Bargain and compromise.

(51:58-52:29) Patrick Mason: So what do you say to the people, and you know this, Tom, I mean, maybe it is just the 15% on each side, but for whom those are dirty words. Bargain, negotiate, compromise, they would say, And let's even take people at their word. So, let's even say it's not just about the raw exercise of power. Let's say that people genuinely believe things and they said there is evil on the other side. That, you know, that I must protect these things. I will not compromise. Yeah.

(52:29-57:43) Thomas Griffith: So, there is. There are some red lines here. For example, I'm actually not going to bargain and compromise with the Nazi. I'm not going to bargain and compromise with a white supremacist. So in my world, you don't get to come in and bargain and compromise unless you are committed to two principles, liberty and equality. If you're committed to those, let's come have the big Thanksgiving dinner of all Americans, and let's talk about what those things mean. And we'll bargain and compromise over what liberty and equality means. And you know what? I'm going to take some risks. giving you liberty in hopes that you'll return the favor. That's real risky, right? But that's what I'm going to do because we're in this, Yuval Levin calls it covenant. That's relationship, right? So, no, but if you're not willing to commit to liberty and equality, I'm sorry. There's no room for you with the grownups at the Thanksgiving table. You have to sit with the kids in the kitchen. Actually, you're not going to be invited to my Thanksgiving dinner. I'm not going to hate you. I'm not going to hate you. But that's the price of admission. So, no, there's not, you know, there's certain things you can't. Having said that, that's easy, right? Nazis, white supremacists, you know? What about if you are a conservative who thinks that all forms of social welfare are evil, right? What about that? Well, no, sorry. Being a citizen requires you to think carefully. It requires humility. One of the greatest judges who was never on the Supreme Court was a fellow named Learned Hand, that really was his name, Learned, great name, Learned Hand. And Justice Scalia used to quote him all the time. And Learned Hand gave a talk back in the 1930s that, used to be in the canon of American political speeches, it was called the Spirit of Liberty. And I don't have it in front of me, but the idea was the Spirit of Liberty is the spirit that's not too sure of itself, that's humble, that's humble. It's best captured in the quote from Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan revolutionary, who said, I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye might be mistaken." And Learned Hand quoted that and said, that ought to be emblazoned over every schoolhouse, every courthouse, every legislature, everywhere. The spirit of liberty is the spirit that recognizes it might be wrong. So that's part of it as well. And part of it is a sense of that that's another human being who deserves to be treated well and needs to be listened to and might be right. But I can't count the number of issues in my life where I was just absolutely certain that I was right and the other side was just dead wrong. I still have some of those, but it's a much smaller group right now. And so I think there's a, to be a fellow citizen, there's a, there's going to be a sense of humility. Okay. One final thing. Look, what we're trying to do in America today has never been tried before, right? I mean, no one has really tried on a continental level to create a multicultural society that embraces pluralism. I mean, this just goes against all sorts of all parts of our human nature. This is really hard work. The scriptural accounts of days like that come after the coming of the Lord, right? Well, you know, apparently we're going to be able to achieve that then. Can we achieve it now? I'm not certain we can, but we've got to try, right? We've got to try. And so to me, the folks that aren't willing to compromise, no, that's too harsh to say, But I think the American project right now is to buy into this creating a multicultural pluralistic society. And if you're not comfortable with that, well, that's what we're doing here. That's what America is doing here. That's what it's been started to do back in the 18th century and increasingly has committed itself to. That's what we're committed to do is to create a multicultural pluralistic society where people of every nation, kin, and kindred tongue can thrive and flourish. That's the project. Let's, let's argue about how to do that, but recognize that other others have views of how to do that, that may be different than mine, but maybe, maybe better than mine. And even if they're wrong, I want, I want them to be part of it.

(57:43-58:14) Jennifer Thomas: So I actually think that is a beautiful place to kind of start to wrap this conversation up. You've shared some remarkable thoughts with us today. And I think I'd like to close by just asking you a quick question about where and how do you find peace? You talked a little bit about the beginning of what peace was, but how do you find it for yourself? Because you've just shared with us the fact that you are in politically contentious environments a lot. You're dealing with people who think quite differently than you do on the regular. And how in that process do you find peace?

(58:16-01:02:17) Thomas Griffith: That was the other question that you all sent me that I was supposed to think about in advance and I really struggled with. But here's what I've come up with. When I do find peace, which is not always, when I do find peace, I think it's because there are two things that I believe. And I'll try and capture it in two quotes that have been meaningful to me. The first one comes from C.S. Lewis. in his greatest sermon, The Weight of Glory, where towards the end of the sermon, he adds this phrase. It says, next to the blessed sacrament itself, next to the communion, next to the sacrament of the Lord's suffering, next to that, our neighbor is the holiest object presented to our senses. But that's where real holiness resides. And it resides in the emblems of our Lord's suffering, and death and resurrection, but also resides in that person next to me. So when I can get myself in that state of mind, with that understanding, I'm more likely to feel peace. And then I'll combine that with David Bentley Hart's description of the Christians who put together the New Testament, as he was describing what was motivating them. Why were they doing what they were doing? Why did they write the things they write? Why did they do the things that they do? He said, they believe that history had been invaded by God in Christ in such a way that nothing could stay as it was. All terms of human community and conduct had been altered at the deepest levels, at the deepest levels. So I believe that. I believe that God has acted in history and is now acting in history. I believe he acted in history through the life, death, resurrection, and ministry of Christ. And I believe he's acting in history today through the restoration of the gospel. And because of that, That gives me a sense of peace. It's good news, right? That ultimately, ultimately, Christ is going to win. As Elder Holland says, this is the church of happy endings. And I believe that. I believe in God. heavenly parents and a Savior who, in Elder Kieran's words, are relentless in their pursuit of each of their children. And I don't believe that they'll be satisfied until each of their children has had a full opportunity to understand the nature of reality, freed from the effects of the fall and society and all the things that make us see through a glass darkly, that all of their children, once they see the true nature of things, will embrace it. I believe that. I'm an optimist in that way. When I meditate on those things and then try and act out those things, I'm better at the meditating than the acting. But when I can do that, no, I do feel peace. I do feel alignment with God, and I feel alignment with my brothers and sisters around the world.

(01:02:17-01:02:19) Patrick Mason: Well, that sounds like a pretty good cure to doom and gloom.

(01:02:21-01:02:26) Thomas Griffith: Yeah, but we're going to go through some tough times anyway.

(01:02:26-01:03:16) Patrick Mason: Yeah, yeah. It won't necessarily be easy. Well, Tom, thank you so much. Thanks for your generosity. Thanks for all the wisdom that you've shared with us. Thanks for really a life dedicated to upholding these principles and all that you're doing right now across the country to try to maintain, uphold, to defend the constitutional republic that has provided such a space of peace for all of us. So thank you for all you're doing. Thank you. Thanks everybody for listening today. We really appreciate it. We just want to invite you to subscribe to the podcast and also to rate and review it. We love hearing feedback from listeners, so please email us at podcast at mweg.org. We also want to invite you to think about ways that you can make peace in your life this week. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.

(01:03:21-01:03:37) Jennifer Thomas: Thank you for listening to Proclaim Peace, a proud member of the Faith Matters Podcast Network. Faith Matters holds expansive conversations about the restored gospel to accompany individuals on their journey of faith. You can learn more about Faith Matters and check out our other shows at faithmatters.org.