DezNat should not be confused with State of Deseret.
Deseret nationalism, popularized online as #DezNat,[1] is a far-right Mormon nationalist movement in the United States. It originated in 2018 following the Unite the Right rally by Logan Smith, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[2] The term originated as a Twitter hashtag, collecting upwards of 114,000 original posts.
Contributors to The Daily Beast and The Daily Utah Chronicle have described DezNat as an extremist alt-right, white nationalist movement.[3] [4] [5] Journalists at The Guardian consider the group right-wing with elements of the far-right.[6] Supporters of DezNat have insisted that their purpose is to gather orthodox Latter-day Saints and defend the Church. Correspondingly, they see the term “alt-right” as inaccurate and even defamatory.[7] Supporters use Bowie knife imagery as a homage to Brigham Young.
Some within the DezNat community have advocated for the restoration of the historical State of Deseret as an independent state outside of U.S. jurisdiction.[8] As well as the secession of a theocratic Mormon state, some DezNat commentators have suggested this should be a white ethnostate using both neo-Nazi and far-right accelerationist imagery.[6] Users of the hashtag reject being labeled as alt-right.[9] Smith says the hashtag recognizes faithful LDS Church members as "a unique people and should be united spiritually, morally, economically, and politically behind Christ, the prophet, and the church."[10] [11]
The community has been criticized for promoting harassment against members of the LGBTQ community, ex-Mormons, feminists, abortion-rights advocates, and pornographic film actors.[3] Some within DezNat advocate for violent actions under the pretext of blood atonement for certain sins,[3] a practice the LDS Church leadership has disavowed.[12] [13] [14]
In July 2021, investigative journalists at The Guardian identified Matthias Cicotte, an Alaska Assistant Attorney General, as a poster of racist and antisemitic Deseret Nationalist content using the Twitter account @JReubenCIark.[6] Following the release of the report, civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, called for the termination of Cicotte from his position and the reopening of his cases. This prompted an investigation from the Alaska Department of Law and Cicotte was removed from his caseload.[15] A Department spokesperson confirmed Cicotte was no longer working for them, stating: "However, although we cannot talk about personnel matters, we do not want the values and policies of the Department of Law to be overshadowed by the conduct of one individual."[16] Shortly thereafter, the deans of J. Reuben Clark Law School, of which both Cicotte and Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor are graduates, released a statement condemning the "venomous and hateful Twitter messages against a variety of vulnerable groups" from the @JReubenCIark account.[17]