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January 24, 2012 at 12:31 pm 
Ed Brayton Wow, this is some serious batshittery. A woman named Tricia Erickson, a former Mormon, is spewing some real crazy about Mitt Romney, claiming that if he’s elected it will lead to the Mormon church taking over America. Right Wing Watch has the transcript of a radio appearance she did.
Schneider: Are you suggesting Tricia that if Mitt Romney is elected President of the United States that there is an allegiance to the Mormon Church that would supersede his oath to the United States or the Constitution of the United States?
Erickson: Absolutely…. As president of the United States, Mitt would have less authority than that of the living prophet of the Mormon Church, he is therefore no matter his position as leader of our nation subject to the prophet and to his orders and to his mandates, even if those mandates go against our nation…
Erickson: The political machinery of the priesthood of the Mormon Church is named the Kingdom of God and/or the Government of God, and the goal of the Mormon Church, through the Mormon Kingdom of God, is to bring the United States government, this is true, under the rule of the priesthood, the Mormon priesthood. Mormons believe that they are the only true church, all other religions are false, and their main objective is to be ready when the time comes for the millennial reign by having their leaders ready to rule or already in key places of authority and power. Their ultimate goal is better serve their agenda by being able to rule and govern before the millennium actually takes place and the Mormon Church and its corporate empire, assets and resources will be the chief element in the millennial overthrow of the United States government.
Look, I think Mormonism is a ridiculous religion and they’re certainly aligned with the standard religious right ideology. But on the list of groups I worry about taking over our government, the Mormon church falls somewhere between the Girl Scouts and the surviving cast members of the Apple Dumpling Gang.
This is the same argument that was made for two centuries about Catholic politicians, that they would be under the control of the pope and do his bidding. In fact, that was one of the major arguments made by opponents of the Constitution, particularly the ban on religious tests for office in Article 6. It was nothing more than ignorant bigotry then, and it still is now.
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So people who place their religious beliefs and/or prophets of said beliefs above the Constitution should not be allowed into office?
… hm.
Careful. They’ve been complaining about the Girl Scouts lately too.
So, if Romney gets the nomination, this November y’all will have to choose between being taken over by the Mormons or the atheist Muslims.
I don’t envy you Americans, really I don’t.
Nah, Obama will just cancel the election.
Wow, that takes me back to 1960 with Kennedy and Catholicism.
Although Catholics don’t posthumously baptize dead people into their faith quite as often as Mormons do.
This makes them different from other churches how?
If Romney is elected, will the government issue everyone their magic underwear or will we just get a tax credit?
I agree that Romney himself doesn’t represent a threat of any Mormon takeover. But not all religions are created equal (or equally dangerous).
Simply because a Catholic or Mormon President may not subjugate the interests of the US to the interests of their particular religion doens’t mean that the idea of someone doing exactly that is inconceivable. The potential does exist.
In fact, if Michelle Bachmann had been somehow miraculously elected President, I’d say that it’s almost a certainty that her husband would’ve had a decisive influence on her adminsitrations policy, if not outright setting it himself. That would’ve been due to *her* religious belief that he is the proper decision-maker in her household. Not as extreme an example, but an example nonetheless of how the interests of the nation could potentially subjugated to the interests of a President’s religion.
No, it’s totally okay if one whose authority you place supreme above all others is in your head.
What in Mitt Romney’s history makes anybody believe he has any core beliefs at all?
To any wingnuts who might stumble on this:
Once again, you’re the ones who’ve been trying to tear down the wall of separation between church and state, one of the best defenses the US has against religious takeovers of the government. We’ve been watching you work at it for generations. We’ve been watching you panic and intensify your efforts after 9/11 because you allowed terrorists to influence your judgement through the fear they spread.
Guess who’s going to get the blame if something crazy happens and the Mormon church manages to take over the US.
We’ve already been taken over by the atheist Muslims. The question will be whether to throw off those chains in favor of a Mormons takeover.
Better the devil you know, I say.
Of course, if one listens to certain left wing nutcases, the International Zionist Conspiracy has already take over the US Government.
I’m not going to get worried until the Mormons become allied with the atheist Moslem commies.
With interviews like this, why do I always hear the questioner-
as the “host” of a late-night infomercial?
“Bill, are you saying that the Blend-O-matic can liquidate this mango in under 5 seconds? That’s incredible!!1″
Wow, it sounds like the Mormons want to setup a Mormon caliphate. Did Joe Smith watch too much Pinky and the Brain when he was young?
(One of the powers of magic underwear is the ability to watch TV in the future).
So, she’s appearing on shows hosted by people who fervently want to overthrow our Constitution and impose biblical law on us to warn American that the Mormons want to overthrow our Constitution and impose their religious laws on us. Not surprisingly, the hosts of these shows also spent a lot of time warning us that Muslims want to overthrow our Constitution and impose Shariah law on us. Or that teh Gayz want to overthrow our Constitution and impose their Gayness on us. Or that atheists want to overthrow our Constitution and impose “secular humanism” on us.
Maybe it’s all just projection.
amusement aside, please don’t ever kid yourselves that Mormons are not already heavily involved in politics, and do indeed have specific grand ambitions that haven’t changed for quite some time.
It’s not paranoia if it turns out there really is someone following you.
If you truly are ignorant of this organization, I would highly suggest you spend some time researching them.
While the Scientologists like to horsewhip the law to work for them, the Mormons actually prefer to change the laws themselves instead.
Romney maintains his membership most likely for historical and family reasons, but don’t let that for one second let you think he is typical of the actual Mormon leadership.
I am going have to second Ichthyic here. You seem to be mistaking the Church of the LDS for something quaint and amusing, in which case you are completely offbase. The LDS/Mormons are heavily involved in politics and getting a Mormon into the White House has long been a goal of the Church. If you are equating them with the Girl Scouts, you really don’t know much about them at all. Non-Catholics were the ones worried about a Catholic president. The Mormons I know are quite clear about their goals here. The only question about Romney is how much he really believes in the tenants of his church (though his behavior leads one to believe his only tenant is “ME FIRST”).
Exmormon here. While I think the fears are unfounded, it’s at least fair to say that Mormon leaders have written about how the Mormon church is going to “save” the government, constitution, etc.
“The time would come when the constitution and government would hang by a brittle thread and would be ready to fall into other hands but this people the latter-day saints will step forth and save it.” – Joseph Smith
Now, I know some members take things like this more literally than others. I know for a fact that some believe that it’s the LDS members’ job to take over the government (my parents are among them). However, there are also many (probably a large majority, but that’s just speculation) who only care about how much love Jeebus wants to bestow upon everyone and are completely apathetic towards politics.
While a total takeover like Erickson describes is implausible, there are at least a few Mormons who are actively trying to put themselves in positions of power to spread the influence of their church. I expect that the same story applies to basically every other religion as well.
@5 Zugswang says:
I don’t care if they want to baptize the dead as long as they don’t register them as Republicans.
@11 Bronze Dog says:
Liberals and gays? That seems to be the pattern.
Being forced to become a Mormon is scary, but even SCARIER is being forced to become a FRENCH Mormon!!!!
Ooooooh, so now Mormonism has its own Shoebat.
Ichthyic writes:
That’d be Jon Huntsman.
Mitt Romney and his family are Mormons in good standing with the LDS church where he’s personally impacted many Mormon members’ lives given various leadership positions he’s held in the church. And while Romney may have politically acted in the past as if he’s moderate, his mindset is strongly conservative, he is unable to demonstrate empathy (I repeat myself), and he clearly perceives and acts out from a very narrow perspective based on whom he associates with rather than a broader set of factors non-authoritarians use, like – ya know, historical results, what experts argue, or priorities based on the national interest.
So exactly how many takeovers of the US Government have there been?
The atheists, the muslims, the atheist muslims, the Catholics, the Mormons…
Ah well, guess you gotta catch’em all.
Don’t forget the Masons….
Re Trebuchet @ #26
Also don’t forget the Bilderbergers, the Illuminati, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission.
That’d be Jon Huntsman.
You’re right.
I just didn’t want to be the one coming off as defining Romney by his Mormonism, in a thread decrying paranoia about Mormons.
I should have said it like it is.
Since Mormons make linkages between native Americans and the Lost Tribe of Israel, isn’t the LDS takeover of the US government just a pre-existing form of Manifest Destiny? Mitt is helpless but to follow the currents of history.
Erickson has also appeared on Thom Hartmann’s show. Apparently Thom got duped by an undercover consrevative.
Don’t underestimate the Girl Scouts. I just spent 2 hours with some pretty impressive 7th grade Girl Scouts, and there are times they terrify me.
Cool. Let him do a version of Kennedy’s speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, with the “what kind of America I believe in” bit.
I don’t know abb3w, Mittens did make this idiotic statement in 2007-
Romney vs. Kennedy-
http://personman.com/romney_is_no_kennedy
Upon consideration … I think a takeover by the Girl Scouts would be a vast improvement on our current situation.
Forget Paul’s gold standard ravings. The dollar should be backed by Thin Mints.
briandavis – but then the US motto would have to be changed to:
“Aw go on, it’s only wafer thin!”
:) Dingo
Don’t laugh. This is true. It’s standard Mormon doctrine.
1. Mormons believe they are the Real Jews, the chosen people of god. They have the New Coventant. This is why those other Jews and everyone else are called gentiles.
2. An important prophecy, the White Horse prophecy, says one day the Mormons will take over the US government. Man Mormons believe it fervently. The church itself doesn’t often admit that it believes this but the LDS church lies a lot about their doctrines when it has to.
3. Since the Mormons are the One True Religion with the One True Covenant of god, they believe they will one day take over and rule the world and convent everyone. That’s why every damn kid goes on a two year mission for Cthulhu’s sake.
I’m always wary of wild eyed religious fanatic meat robots who claim they will rule over me some day. In the Mormon theocracy, I’d probably be in their reeducation camps within 3 months, and on my way to their death camps shortly afterwards.
Where Mormons have a majority, mostly Utah and parts of surrounding states, they always oppress and discriminate against nonMormons.
A lot of it is petty, like their restrictive liquor laws.
A lot of it is not. A lot of businesses run by Mormons won’t hire nonMormons. It isn’t necessarily even hate, just that they are really uncomfortable around gentiles. Few people complain. A lot of gentiles aren’t comfortable around Mormons either and wouldn’t want to work there anyway.
The most outrageous discrimination is in voting. Utah has carefully gerrymandered their state so that all the pagans are in a few disticts. The state is only 60% LDS but the state legislature is all but 100% Mormon and basically an arm of the LDS church. It’s only your right to vote in a democracy and you didn’t really care about that anyway, did you.
The rest isn’t too good either. Who do you think controls the public schools in Utah? Most of the gentiles, pagans and even the atheists send their kids to private schools, frequently supposedly religious schools if they can afford it and even if they can’t. Fo the nonMormons kids, the so called public schools aren’t a good place.
Why in the hell do you think Romney, the hollow man, is even running for president. A lot of it is part of the White Horse prophecy and Mormon beliefs about world conquest.
That being said, Romney and especially Huntsmen are the least likely of the current Tea Party candidates to wreck the USA. It’s a bit ironic.
I’ll add here, that religious freaks bent on world conquest are always bad news.
1. The Mormons moved to Utah to set up their own country, called Zion or Deseret or some such. This is treason.
2. They fought a war with the USA over this, the Utah war. The main casulties were the Mountain meadows massacre, where 120 civilians were slaughtered. No one over the age of 7 survived.
3. The USA has a fort above their capital, Salt Lake City. Fort Douglas has it’s guns aimed down on the city. This is to keep an eye on the Mormons. It’s still there.
The saving grace of all this is that there are only 6 million US Mormons and maybe half of those are apathetic, inactive, or dropped out. Retention rates of converts are around zero. It’s a high cost, kooky religion and unless you are brainwashed from birth, few people last for long.
While they are Mormon Khmer Rouge or Mormon Taliban wannabees, it probably won’t happen. But so what, for religious reasons they will keep trying anyway. Without eternal vigilance, it can happen here.
PS. Has the Mormon internet patrol shown up yet? They actually have one but they aren’t very good. Meat robots don’t work so well out in the real world.
Raven: ‘ …the Mormons want to overthrow our Constitution and impose their religious laws on us.’
Don’t laugh. This is true. It’s standard Mormon doctrine.
True, yes, but they haven’t a snowball’s chance in Hell of succeeding. I am worried about the Dominionists. There are more of them, they have more natural allies in the US (other mainstream Fundie Christians), and have already shown up in the White House (earlier administrations) and the military.
They have a chance. Although a minority, they can leverage their strengths like the Taliban have in Afghanistan.