Utah needs a senator who is wise and believes in the common good.
He should be able to restrain his desire for power when victory would be pyrrhic and against our nation’s long-term interests. He should endeavor to protect the health of American citizens. He should legislate to combat current problems, but also consider deeply the ramifications of his policies for future generations.
Ideally, he would be humble and empathetic - cognizant of the good fortune which gave him the capacity to serve, in tune to the varied needs of his fellow citizens and keenly aware that he is a mere vessel for promoting the common good of humanity.
Fortunately, Sen. Mitt Romney embodies many of these traits most of the time. Unfortunately, Sen. Mike Lee regularly falls well short of the bar, and has tragically erred when the stakes were at their highest and mature judgement was critical.
The January 6 commission has established without a doubt that Donald Trump had planned months before Election Day to declare victory in the 2020 presidential election even if he lost. And, as has been shown repeatedly, he lost decisively in a free and fair election. The January 6 insurrection was simply the last step in a carefully planned hub and spoke conspiracy in which the attack on the Capitol was just one spoke in Trump’s grander scheme to cling to power.
Lee eagerly and actively participated in Trump’s illegal attempt to subvert our democracy and stay in power. In so doing, Lee violated his oath and dishonored his office. Incredibly, Lee claims he did nothing wrong, but his text messages to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, provide convincing evidence to the contrary.
In his quest for power, Lee searched for any pretext to contest the election’s result. Seemingly unbothered by the pernicious consequences of his actions for our nation’s democracy, on January 4, Lee texted Meadows again: “I’ve been spending 14 hours a day for the last week trying to unravel this [Biden’s win] for him [Trump].” “We need something from state legislatures to make this legitimate and to have any hope of winning.”
Trump lost. Lee knew there was nothing “legitimate” that could change that, but in his over weaning partisan desire to win at all costs, he left no stone unturned to help Trump steal victory from the over 80 million citizens who voted for Biden.
Had Trump’s coup attempt succeeded, Lee would have had the dubious distinction of having significantly contributed to the end of 235 years of American democracy.
This alone disqualifies Lee to be a United States senator.
Unfortunately, there’s more.
For 12 years as United States senator, Lee has been willfully blind to the single greatest and most complex global existential threat facing our world, climate change. And now climate change in many of its varied manifestations has dramatically arrived in Utah.
How so? The 2021 summer was the hottest ever recorded in Utah, and the Earth is now warmer than it’s been in 125,000 years. Our 20-year drought threatens our water supply, is degrading our land and has left the Great Salt Lake water level at its lowest mark since measurements began in 1875. In 2021, foul air that wafted over from record wildfires in California had us breathing the worst air in the world.
As the sixth International Panel on Climate Change Report reminds us, climate change is unequivocally being driven by the burning of fossil fuels. Not only was Lee willfully blind to climate change, for 12 years he has actively worked to disseminate the fossil fuel industries’ myths and to obfuscate the reality of climate change so that many Utahns did not realize the importance and severity of the problem.
Lee prioritized the special interests of the fossil fuel industry and ignored the long-term interests of Utahns, American citizens and all our fellow humans around the world.
This fundamental self-serving dishonesty on a such a crucially important issue is unforgiveable for a Senator who is expected to prioritize our long-term interests.
But, unfortunately, there’s more.
As a physician, I see clearly that Lee doesn’t care about the health of all American citizens. While he is covered by a platinum-plated federal government sponsored health plan, he vigorously fought the Affordable Care Act (ACA) whose primary purpose was to expand healthcare coverage to those who didn’t have it.
In 2013, in an attempt to de-fund the ACA, Lee spearheaded the disastrous Republican shutdown of our government. Before the Affordable Care Act, 60 million Americans didn’t have health insurance. Now, 27 million Americans are without health insurance. This progress was made despite Lee’s persistent and vigorous attempts to block the Affordable Care Act.
And that’s not all. A huge reason why America has suffered over 1 million deaths from COVID-19 is that politicians like Lee politicized vaccination and the wearing of masks by speciously labelling them as infringements on liberty rather than sensible public health policy. This has led to over 200,000 preventable deaths. Lee and his fellow enablers of Trump’s disastrous Covid response literally have blood on their hands.
Mike Lee is the antithesis of a wise senator. He is narrow-minded, haughty and overly partisan. He has abysmally failed to prioritize our health, defend our democracy, and protect the only Earth we have not only for us, but for the generations that follow.
He is unfit to serve as a United States senator. Thankfully, we have a promising alternative. Vote for Evan McMullin.
Justin F. Thulin, M.D., is a dermatologist practicing in Salt Lake City.
Justin F. Thulin, Holiday, is a retired physician.
