Is 2012 good for the Mormons?

What are we to think, now that a Mormon has clinched the presidential nomination of one of America’s two major parties? The respectable Victorian men who ruled America’s politics during the 1912 election would have been stricken with chills at the thought of a presidential election a century hence pitting a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints against an African American. So looked at in one way, the 2012 election – like the 2008 – signals that America does seem to be a melting pot. African Americans and Mormons alike – like Catholics before them – once reviled and suspect minorities, are now capable participants in American public life.

But looked at from another way, perhaps the melting pot is a less than adequate metaphor. The Mormons, particularly, seem to have reached only that level of assimilation absolutely required to avoid complete exclusion from American culture. In part this is because Mormons like it that way. There are things about American culture they find uncomfortable. But it is also in part because depending on the poll you choose, anywhere from ten to thirty percent of the American public are hesitant about voting for a Mormon president. These numbers are the product of a long history of negotiation between Mormonism and American culture writ large.
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