Ultimate AHC: President Joseph Smith

MormonMobster, it appears that this forum operates on a secular basis. If you think something is ASB because it contradicts your religion, it's not ASB. It's ASB if it's impossible. To call a piece of work ASB when it is not is an insult.

It's not polite to expect others to conform to how you view the theological framework of historical events. It's ASB that Joseph Smith would become president, yes. But not the reason is not because of God.
 
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Cook

Banned
Is it "piss off the Mormons" day or something? Because "cult" is a loaded term, you know.

Not in the context Wolf used it, it isn’t. While Joseph Smith was alive the Mormon Church was considered a Cult. It would be hard for the leader of a new religion to be elected President of the United States when most voters considered him a cult leader.

Before you get worked up it is clear from historical records that 2000 years ago the followers of an itinerant Rabbi from Galilee were considered a cult, and a heretical cult at that. It is only the survival of religions beyond the death of their founder that most regard as defining the difference between a cult and a religion.

Religiously, that wasn't what God would want him to do...

This thread is working on the theoretical premise that God had a different plan for Smith. Whether God actually wanted him to win or just learn humility by defeat can likewise be open to conjecture.
 

Zioneer

Banned
You guys do realize that I've given up on getting annoyed by that, right? And that I've been thinking up AH ideas for Joseph Smith in this thread regardless of what I said, right?

You can ignore what I said on the topic of "god's will". I've been trying to explain what I really meant, but apparently I'm just really bad at clarifying what I meant, so ignore my musings on that.

I stand by what I said on the "cult leader" thing. It might be somewhat true, but so are various other religious terms that could have been used. I'm just annoyed that the most pejorative term was used.
 
If we get back to the OP, what are the chances of making Joseph Smith, Jr. governor or even president? After all, religious mogul Pat Robertson considered the presidency some decades ago.

The POD will be around 1840. Driven out of Missouri, Illinois welcomed the Mormons. They were sympathetic to this persecuted group. This was their "second chance" to become a function part of a rapidly settling area. Smith could have decided to "tone it down" and be more civil to those outside the faith and thus convince more to join. After all, Smith's assembly of such a large following in such a small time was no small feat. If you are a Mormon, it was a matter of divine influence; in any case, Joseph Smith was an incredibly convincing statesman to his followers. Extrapolating that level persuasion into politics far enough to be a candidate for president is an exceptionally difficult challenge, but not impossible.

Suppose Smith transitions direct control of the church to others, be it Brigham Young, his brother or others. By 1841 he takes a role of integrating Mormon Nauvoo with neighboring counties and communities. My take is that if he was persuasive enough to assemble so many thousands of followers, he could have channeled those talents to present the faith and community as a functioning part of Illinois (and Iowa).

That century, there were many towns founded on communalistic-Christian adherence. There were the German Lutherans in Iowa's Amana Colonies. There were the French Icarians (Catholic) who ended up settling Mormon-vacated Nauvoo. The biggest of all would have been Mormon migration to Utah orchestrated by Brigham Young, less than five years after Smith's death. Certainly, Smith could have exploited these same resources.

There was certainly room for a growing, prospering Nauvoo metropolitan area between Hancock County, Illinois and Lee County, Iowa. Today's St. Louis metro area has 2.8 million people. The State of Utah has 2.7 million people. Nauvoo can easily become a hub of water and railroad resources. After all, the then-navigable Des Moines River joins the Mississippi at the south end of Lee County.

I guess I am moving to a completely different thread: demographic changes if the Mormons remained here. So I will stop now.
 
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