Yes, the main thing here is they’re feeling a sense of Othering that they all grew up being told was a thing that happened to Mormons, but they didn’t really believe it because they were loyal republicans and the majority of them live and die in the bubble of Utah and the surrounding areas, so they’re a force to be reckoned with even when not the majority. Those of us who grew up Mormon (i got better!) in the Bible Belt knew that the evangelicals would never accept Mormons as fellow Christians. More understanding groups wouldn’t make a thing of it, even if they have the same theological distinctions, but the Bible thumpers were always going to insist on semantic cleansing once they had their hands on the levers of power, and if the Mormons don’t accept that they’re only as good as Jews and Muslims, they’ll get slapped down even harder by a truly Christian Nationalist regime.
Yes, the main thing here is they’re feeling a sense of Othering that they all grew up being told was a thing that happened to Mormons, but they didn’t really believe it because they were loyal republicans and the majority of them live and die in the bubble of Utah and the surrounding areas, so they’re a force to be reckoned with even when not the majority. Those of us who grew up Mormon (i got better!) in the Bible Belt knew that the evangelicals would never accept Mormons as fellow Christians. More understanding groups wouldn’t make a thing of it, even if they have the same theological distinctions, but the Bible thumpers were always going to insist on semantic cleansing once they had their hands on the levers of power, and if the Mormons don’t accept that they’re only as good as Jews and Muslims, they’ll get slapped down even harder by a truly Christian Nationalist regime.