To most people paying attention, the Left was openly the ideology of Satan, the destruction of agency, and the promotion of vice. (see here, as well as numerous statements from every prophet of the 20th century for reference.) Therefore, it was often seen by many Latter-Day Saints that supporting the Right and the Republicans was in their best interest. However, the Republicans were not truly the Right, they were a Fake Right who's main purpose seems to be to have hedged in the Right and not allowed it to express itself properly, at least since the time of William Buckley if not before—although realistically, since the era of the Progressives over a hundred years ago, the Right has been on the ropes in America. This was especially egregious when old, war-mongering FDR style Trotskyites from the Left found themselves out of favor with the free love hippy generation, and rebranded themselves as "neoconservative" and pretended like what was radical leftism two generations earlier were now right wing concepts.
Anyway, getting too caught up in the philosophies of men is, of course, contrary to the instruction we are given through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is especially true when the philosophies of men offer us false dichotomies posing as meaningful choices, but which are in reality both different ways for an evil elite to dominate us.
A few quotes from the Z-man on this:
One of the underappreciated aspects of liberal democracy is that it always pits morality versus objective facts, always creating a false choice. Every public debate is between one camp that demand we do “the right thing” and another camp that insist on doing “the correct thing”. The right thing is defined as the moral thing while the correct thing is the factually accurate or effective thing. The choice is to fail while on the moral high ground or to succeed and be seen and inhumane or indifferent. The debate that evolved over economics that grew up out of the industrial revolution is the origin. The Marxists were never making an economic argument back in the 19th century. They started with a moral claim that capitalism is built on exploitation of the workers. This was inherently immoral so it must lead to class struggle, crisis and then revolution.
The reaction to Marxism was Austrian School economics. Unlike the Marxists, the Austrians had a very detailed analysis of economics. Their model explained the basics of how goods and services flowed through an economy. This factual accuracy made it possible to form public policy and test the result. Over the course of the Cold War, Austrian economics became the primary weapon against Marxism. It stripped communist economics of the claim to empirical authority.
The trouble with Austrian School economics is it also striped morality and group preference from public debate. Every want and desire had to be justified by an economic argument. Rotten results that may make sense according to the laws of economics could not be contested. The out of control consumerism we see, for example, just has to be tolerated. The spread of degeneracy cannot be opposed, because the market dictates what is right in society.
The dynamic resulting from this false choice seems to be reaching an end point, where neither side is sustainable. The moral claims made by what is called the Left have veered so far into the ridiculous that it looks like satire. A century ago, it was easy to sympathize with the groups the Left claimed to champion. Workers being ripped off by unscrupulous employers had a strong claim. Men is bizarre outfits claiming to be a third sex are clowns no one can take seriously.
A similar fate has befallen the so-called Right. When massive global corporations are stripping people of their rights, often by funding street gangs to assaults people going about their business, it is laughable to defend the "free market" system that produced these companies. When state sponsored financial concerns are buying up houses to create new renters in the name of capitalism, the so-called free market is just as ridiculous as the men in dresses.
Liberal democracy has become an octopus with its tentacles wrapped around various parts of society. One tentacle is the moralizers assaulting us with the latest fads from corporate HR. Another tentacle is consumerism strip mining the traditions and history, the social capital, that are the foundation stones of society. Another tentacle is finance capital skimming a bit from every transaction without adding anything back.
That is the primary defense of the system. All critics are herded into this set of false choices the system maintains. If you do not like that state-sponsored hedge funds are hoovering up single family homes, you have two choices. One is you can throw in with the loons and their bizarre defense of bourgeoise decadence. The other is you can waste your time making an economic argument claiming that the "market" will solve the problem if we worship it more.
[T]he cosmopolitan global order has more in common with certain movements of the last century than the liberal pieties of today. The new world order is a synthesis of Marxist moral philosophy and Austrian post hoc market analysis. Everywhere one turns in the modern age, they are pelted with moral slogans based in diversity, inclusion, and equity. This call to arms is every bit as radically insane as “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” was in the French Revolution. As in the revolution, it is more than just a slogan. It is the foundation of the new moral orthodoxy. It is the moral claim of Marxism, without the economic plan.
That economics comes from a bastardized version of Austrian economics. The global corporations imposing the new moral framework on the West are justified by their market dominance. After all, if you do not like what the duopoly that controls mobile communications has to say about morality, for example, start your own phone monopoly. The lack of an alternative is proof that the market has spoken.
The old denunciations of democracy, liberalism, and socialism from the fascists of the last century have been updated in the new age. The public will, as expressed through the democratic process, is now systematically marginalized. Liberal principles are condemned as contrary to the moral order. Of course, any effort to restrain corporate power is condemned as socialism. [T]he world is dominated by a synthesis of the two called cosmopolitan globalism. The point of democratic systems is for the public to have a say in how public policy is formulated and a veto over the final result. In reality, it offers false choices controlled by a narrow elite. The narrow elite hides in the shadows of a mythical beast called the general will or the invisible hand of the market. It is a curtain behind which stands the ruling class. In the end, it is looking like what Marxism and liberal democracy have always claimed to oppose.
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