Frank Fox’s letter for the 2024 election
Frank Fox, a lifelong conservative and founder of the American Heritage course at BYU, speaking out on the dangers of Trump and what patriotism means
In 2020, Frank W. Fox made waves among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and associates of Brigham Young University. For decades, he was a professor at BYU, teaching American history, and eventually the famous required course American Heritage. In 2020, he made a series of videos and a letter to LDS people in Arizona urging them to vote against Donald Trump because Trump is antithetical to our constitutional principles, such as integrity and rule of law.
Many LDS people in the American West since the mid- to late-1900s are staunchly Republican. In fact, many have accused pockets of Mountain West LDS people of literally not looking at the candidates’ names, just whether “(R)” was next to them.
In fulfillment of those characterizations, some pockets of LDS people were outraged when Frank Fox had the nerve to have an opinion publicly — now retired and completely a private citizen — during the 2020 election, because they looked to him as a conservative icon and could not accept that he was thoroughly rejecting Trump and endorsing Joe Biden.
We may have wondered if he learned his lesson. But, in the year 2024, he has again released a beautiful treatise on American government and constitutional principles.
Here are a few of the things he said:
In a democracy, integrity is a rock-bottom necessity. Without telling the truth and facing the truth, self-government cannot work. … I hear echoes of such moments in what Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are saying to those excited crowds around the country — and hearing back from them in return. “It’s time to put an end to all the nonsense. It’s time to stand up and tell the truth!”
The political word for decency is civility, which means that we can disagree with one another, absolutely; we can embrace our various separate values and interests and points of view; but we must learn to resolve those differences peacefully through negotiation and compromise. Decency is also about respecting our common humanity.
Nevertheless, in recent years, our public affairs have become hobbled with jungle-like tactics. To name but a few of these, think about using weird conspiracy theories to put down political rivals. Or blackmailing one’s own party members into embracing ludicrous falsehoods. Or using coarse epithets to smear political opponents. Or portraying the other party as a public enemy.
These are not marks of decency — but indecency. They seek to disparage and demonize our fellow human beings. They are steps along the dark path of racism, sexism, xenophobia, and religious intolerance. Worst of all, they are attempts to undermine our sense of a shared American identity — which is the very lifeblood of our patriotism.
I hear a plea for decency and civility in much of what Harris and Walz are saying. When their crowds begin chanting “Lock him up!” they respond with: “Let’s get past all that and move on!”
Bottom line: the rule of law has made us who we are and what we are. It is the beating heart of our republic.
To work its magic, however, the rule of law requires that the laws we pass in our legislatures or work out in court decisions must apply across the board. No one can be above the law. The minute that anyone, anyone at all — a king, or a crime boss, or a sitting president — can successfully bypass the law, the rule of law fades away.
Alas, the rule of law has been imperiled by much of what transpired in the presidency of Donald Trump — and it nearly failed outright when Trump denied the outcome of a democratic election and then ordered his partisans to storm the Capitol. That ghastly episode jerked us right back to the jungle.
I spent thirty-five years teaching American history at Brigham Young University, and, at bottom, what I was really teaching was American patriotism. It wasn’t the flag-waving patriotism we see so often today, it was the kind of patriotism which bases love of country on the understanding of what America actually means in the course of human events.
I believe this kind of patriotism is the most important thing in our lives. I hope it will provide a critical inflection-point in the election before us — tipping the arc of the past toward a dazzling American future.
Here is a link to the letter in its entirety, with an introduction by his sister:
