For most of her life, Allyson Reynolds was a “default Republican.” That was, the 53-year-old Latter-day Saint explained, simply the world she grew up in.
She felt some hesitancy voting for the Republican nominee Donald Trump in 2016, but it wasn’t until 2020 that she found herself — for a variety of reasons — breaking with not just the party leader, but the party itself. She didn’t go quietly, either.
“This was the first time I decided to engage on Facebook about political issues,” Reynolds, who lives in Minnesota but was living in Highland, Utah, at the time, said, chuckling wryly. “Wow, I never went back to that again.”
Most painful was the criticism she received from fellow members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, particularly a well-respected man from her congregation she knew well.
“Our kids had tutored his kids,” she said. “We had been friends and neighbors. I had accompanied his kids for musical numbers [at church].”
(Courtesy) Allyson Reynolds voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Today, she runs the Instagram account @latterdaydem, where she talks about politics from a more liberal, Latter-day Saint viewpoint.
But none of that seemed to matter after her Facebook post arguing the need to keep abortion safe and legal in order to allow for the exceptions permitted by the church, including in cases of rape and incest.
“He came at me [in the comments] and then he got some other ward members to come at me, calling me the Antichrist,” she said. “… I was just so shocked because these are people that I knew and loved in person.”
Church leaders appear to have taken notice of this kind of tension within the ranks. Worldwide statements and addresses by the top brass have returned repeatedly to the need for civility and reminded members that “principles compatible with the gospel may be found in various political parties.”
The question leading into one of the closest and most contentious presidential elections in U.S. history is whether these lofty goals have lodged themselves in the hearts and minds of the people in the pews.
What church leaders are saying
In a 2023 worldwide General Conference address, church President Russell M. Nelson lamented the loss of “civility and decency” in an era of “polarization and passionate disagreements.” He called on listeners to resist the urge to “vilify” those who disagree with them and to seek to be peacemakers.
That same year, he and his counselors in the faith’s governing First Presidency warned that straight-ticket voting or votes based on “tradition” in the absence of careful study of a candidate represented “a threat to democracy.”
And, in an October 2024 General Conference sermon, senior apostle Dallin H. Oaks reiterated Nelson’s call to eschew polarizing rhetoric.
“As we pursue our preferred policies in public actions, let us qualify for his blessings by using the language and methods of peacemakers,” the man next in line to head up the global faith urged. “In our families and other personal relationships, let us avoid what is harsh and hateful.”
A fight between good and evil
Mesa’s Julie Spilsbury believes these messages are “amazing.” Like Reynolds, the 47-year-old Arizonan grew up Republican and cast her first and last vote for Trump in 2016.
Among the experiences that changed her view on politics was being elected to the City Council in 2020.
Until that point, Spilsbury had lived in a “super LDS, super conservative little Mesa bubble” that hewed to the belief that “Democrats were evil.” Then she won a council seat and suddenly found herself working with individuals of all political stripes — all of whom “cared deeply about their families and their communities.”
She said: “It opened my eyes.”
This presidential election, she has been part of a Republican — and specifically Latter-day Saint Republican — movement in Arizona hoping to help swing the state for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
(Courtesy) Julie Spilsbury, a Republican living in Mesa, Arizona, has spoken out publicly about her support for Vice President Kamala Harris — much to the chagrin of many of her fellow Latter-day Saints.
It hasn’t been easy. Just the other day, Spilsbury said, she received a message from a fellow church member accusing her of “breaking the hearts of [my] pioneer ancestors.” When a fellow council member posted a picture on Facebook of Spilsbury holding a “Republicans for Harris” sign, the comments — all from fellow Latter-day Saints — were so negative that the poster took the image down and texted Spilsbury to apologize.
“It goes back to if you view the other side as evil, then it is a fight for God,” she said. “It’s a fight for light over darkness.”
In this context, Spilsbury, by breaking ranks, is the “divisive” one (something she hears all the time), regardless of how she presents her positions, and any attack, no matter how personal, is seen as justified. This seems to Spilsbury to be how those who have labeled her a “slut” and told her “I hope you burn in hell” view it.
Defining civility
Even so, it would be inaccurate to depict all Trump-supporting Latter-day Saints as (typically) online brawlers.
Anna Jo Mason could not disagree more with Spilsbury’s endorsement of the Democratic vice president.
“I feel like walking the streets,” the 51-year-old Mesa Latter-day Saint said, “with a sign saying not to vote for Harris.”
And yet, Mason said, she and her friend are able to have positive exchanges on the subject.
She has studied the words of Nelson and Oaks and has a lot of thoughts for why their interactions have remained respectful. For one, she said both she and Spilsbury make an effort not to control the other’s vote or thinking. That’s tricky, the Trump backer acknowledged, when you think the other person’s vote has the potential to “be destructive to your life.” But when the fear swells inside, she reminds herself to “trust the Lord has things in control.”
“Civility is not viewing others as all cast into a mold,” Mason observed, “or demonizing [the other side] in our minds, thinking ‘Well, that’s because they all hate America.’”
Amber Brunjes has also thought a lot about the question of how to define civility.
Like Reynolds and Spilsbury, the 44-year-old Latter-day Saint experienced a great deal of blowback after becoming vocal about her opposition to Trump in recent years.
“People get angry more easily than I would have expected,” the Dayton, Nevada, resident said, citing a sense of “betrayal” as at least part of the cause. More than once, texts and calls have left her “in tears.” Among other things, she has received comments questioning, in one way or another, if “I’ve lost my spiritual sense of direction, which is hurtful.”
The experience, Brunjes said, has only reinforced her belief that civility comes from following a foundational teaching of Christianity: Love one’s neighbor.
“I’ve never been told to judge my neighbor,” she said. “I’ve only been told to love them and to seek to understand them, to be a peacemaker and avoid contention.”
One trick Brunjes has learned from experience is to take a moment before responding to others, particularly when what they have said is hurtful.
“If I’m responding to someone with any kind of negative feeling, whether it’s anger or irritation,” she said, “that’s going to lead to contention.”
What civility isn’t
One concern Mason raised regarding church leaders’ recent emphasis on avoiding nasty political fights is its potential to have a chilling effect on robust engagement among Latter-day Saints on flammable topics.
Reynolds, who recently launched the Instagram account @latterdaydem, echoed this fear.
“It’s not civility to me to just be back in your echo chamber and in your corner with two like-minded people,” she said, “talking about the others in private and not engaging.”
Spilsbury raised this worry as well, drawing a contrast between being a peacekeeper — someone who opts for silence in hopes of avoiding contention — and a peacemaker. The latter, she argued, often requires “speaking up” about injustices one sees, but doing so with respect and love.
Signs of progress
Spilsbury remains optimistic. Even amid the scorched earth that is social media, she believes she has begun to see a few green shoots of civility.
She points to a couple of Facebook posts by her husband related to the upcoming election. Together, she said, the couple braced for impact. But the response was different this time.
“It’s created quite a bit of pushback,” she acknowledged. “But, for the most part, the comments have been very respectful. …We’ve been kind of floored.”
There is no way to prove the change is due to church leaders’ comments, but the timing of it all — the posts went up shortly after the latest General Conference — has left her thinking that “maybe people are trying harder.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) President Russell M. Nelson, right, and his counselor Dallin H. Oaks have both used the General Conference pulpit to advocate for greater civility among the church's ranks.
Reynolds draws an even straighter, bolder line between church leaders’ comments and the resolution she eventually found with the Latter-day Saint man who made the hurtful Facebook comments.
She was still carrying a deep wound from the experience when, a few years later, she heard Nelson’s stirring call to faith adherents to be peacemakers.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she said, “but within five minutes of that ending, I got a text from that same man apologizing to me. And I know it’s because he had just heard that same talk.”
She said she forgave him “immediately.”
More recently, she asked followers of her liberal-leaning Instagram account to respond to the following statement: “I’ve noticed overall improvement since [the latest] General Conference” regarding how fellow Latter-day Saints handle political differences.
Of the 150 or so who answered, a handful — 6% in all — said yes.
Not much. But maybe, just maybe, a start.
