As a conservative LDS political pundit, W. Cleon Skousen did not just put his religious beliefs at the center of his politics. He put his politics at the center of his religion. In his book “The 5000 Year Leap,” published in 1981, Skousen concocted a narrative in which all of history leads to and eventually culminates in the drafting of the U.S. Constitution and the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Skousen, perhaps the original apocalyptic MAGA Mormon, was a deep believer in the prophecy, loosely attributed to Joseph Smith, that the Constitution would “hang by a thread” and that a Mormon would step up in messianic fashion to save it. For those who adhere to the Skousen perspective, the preservation of the Constitution — its best hope for survival — now lies, curiously, in the hands of those who are actively assaulting it.
That religious beliefs inform the politics of Mormons or any other group is neither unusual nor alarming. However, what we are seeing today is the Skousenesque tendency to put politics at the center of religion. Mike Lee is the most visible, vocal proponent of this narrow, apocalyptic, Skousenistic worldview. He is the modern MAGA Mormon. However, whereas Skousen politicized Mormonism, Lee has weaponized it.
When Lee compared Trump to the Book of Mormon character Captain Moroni in October 2020, many pro-Trump Mormons took to Facebook and other internet platforms to applaud the comparison. One even mentioned he had sent a Book of Mormon to the White House as a Christmas gift and had specifically underlined the “Captain Moroni chapters.” This is the very brand of extremism and naivete Lee has exploited his entire political career.
Lee’s save-the-Constitution message was at the center of his bid to oust longtime Republican Sen. Bob Bennet in the 2010 Utah caucus. Bennet’s son, Jim Bennet, who served as his father’s campaign manager, told me that “Mike Lee tapped into that Cleon Skousen Constitution-hanging-by-a-thread thing, and that was enough. That did it for him.” To get elected, Lee convinced some anxious and angry people their world was about to fall apart. That paranoid sentiment, which Lee has steadily nurtured, ultimately culminated in widespread LDS support for Trump.
I spoke with Skousen’s son, Paul Skousen, who, like his father, fears the Constitution is becoming weaker by the day and that it will “hang by a thread” very soon. “That thread, which used to be a chain, dwindled down to a big cable, and then a rope. I would say we are on a string right now. We’re not quite at the thread.” However, he says Lee is doing a “superlative job” of fighting for the Constitution. “He is striving to save this country,” Skousen said. “I know my father would have endorsed that.”
And yet, as he invokes the specter of Skousen in howling about the demise of the Constitution, Lee simultaneously advances its destruction. In what can only be defined as the irony of our time, Lee casts as our constitutional savior a man who fomented an insurrection. Lee has overlaid his politics on his religion in such a way that the sacred figure is no longer Captain Moroni. It is Donald Trump.
In this, Lee takes Skousen’s extremism beyond apocalypse. Lee has turned messiahship on its head and laid threadbare the constitutional order. He has MAGAfied his civic calling such that he sees combativeness as courage and hypocrisy as a legitimate means of saving the Constitution.
The idea that a messianic figure will save the Constitution is suspect. The notion that that figure will come in the form of Donald Trump is absurd. And we are complicit in that absurdity as we politicize our faith to the point that we see in Trumpism our civic salvation. Such thinking requires more than a five-thousand-year leap and a thread much stronger than Mike Lee.
As I finished my conversation with Paul Skousen, he shared one last story. He said his daughter was serving as an LDS missionary in Florida near Mar-a-Lago during Trump’s presidency. One day, Trump’s motorcade drove by as she was walking with another missionary in the street. “He waved, and they waved back,” Skousen said. “If only she could have gotten a Book of Mormon to the president.” I asked him what he thought it would be like to convert Trump to Mormonism. “That would be a neat encounter,” he mused. “That’s a Captain Moroni there.” Then he smiled a little and said, “I’ll bet you Mike Lee is working on it.”
Addison Graham
Addison Graham is a junior at Brigham Young University majoring in American Studies and Spanish.