Date: December 16, 2019 (Season 1, Episode 6 – Part 2: 17 min. & 26 sec. long). Click here for the Utah Dept. of Culture and Community Engagement version of this Speak Your Piece episode. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click Here. This episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with help (sound engineering and post-production editing) from Conner Sorenson of Studio Underground.
This SYP episode is an interview with Rodney Decker, former reporter on KUTV Channel 2, with SYP host Brad Westwood on his 2019 book Utah Politics: The Elephant in the Room. Decker’s experiences as an intelligence officer during the Vietnam War, developed in him a healthy measure of skepticism. Add a knack for deep journalistic research, and an equal measure of careful and thoughtful thinking, Decker developed a “tell it like it is” approach in his writing and later in his televised reporting. The same may be said of Decker’s book which discusses Utah’s political climate from the 1890s to 1970s.
Decker’s task in writing this book was to describe, plainly, Utah’s complicated late 19th and early 20th century political climate, which led, in the mid-20th century, to Utah becoming a bastion of social conservative thinking, along with a near religious alignment with the Republican Party. Although the state and the Republican Party haven’t always been inextricably linked, Decker argues that starting after World War II, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (hereafter LDS Church) started to align with the socially conservative and business-friendly Republican Party, mostly in reaction to the changes in civil rights, political and social mores, and sexual attitudes that rippled through mid- to late-20th century America.
Why listen to this SYP episode? Because there are rapid changes in social and religious attitudes today in Utah, and a near imperceptible change demographically in Utah’s population. Utah appears to once again be poised for social-political change. Understanding the political story that frames up the last 50 to 75 years, may help Utahns understand future changing conditions.
For the guest's bio, please click here for the full show notes plus additional resources and readings.
Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.