Gov. Spencer Cox has spent much of the last week in the spotlight.
As Utahns and local and federal officials grapple with the aftermath of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the governor has reiterated a message for Americans to turn down the political temperature and learn how to disagree with civility.
Cox and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, spoke Friday at an event at Notre Dame University focused on democracy and finding shared values. The event, titled “Pragmatism Over Polarization,” was moderated by university president Rev. Robert A. Dowd and highlighted the governors’ success in working across the aisle on issues.
The discussion also came on the heels of Kirk’s assassination last week at Utah Valley University, and examined how the governors want America to back away from political extremes.
It’s something Cox has repeated across various platforms during his tenure, but especially in the last week after the shooting. From press conferences to podcast appearances and more, he has pushed Americans to reconsider what it means to express different opinions while maintaining respect for one another.
Disagreeing better
In 2023, Cox launched his “Disagree Better” initiative as chair of the National Governors Association. Backed by research, the project not only urged Americans to be nicer to one another, but to participate in debate that can move toward solutions.
“We kind of had this realization with my team that we can’t solve any of the greatest problems affecting our country if we all hate each other, and so we thought, is there something we could do to help bridge that a bit?” he said at Notre Dame on Friday.
Cox noted during the discussion that disagreements and differing opinions are foundational to the United States. There are avenues for Americans to settle disagreements, through the ballot box and constitutional provisions, he said.
His initiative, much like the discussion Friday, brought together elected officials who identify with opposing political parties, to show that they were able to disagree passionately “and still like each other.”
“When I say, ‘what does disagree better look like?’ It looks like this,” he said of himself and Lujan Gresham. “But it’s more than that, too. It’s getting to know your neighbor. It’s serving fellow human beings.”
“It’s finding ways to engage with people who are different than you,” Cox continued. “It’s really hard to hate up close.”
Partisan responses and finger pointing
Following the fatal shooting and while the investigation was underway in Utah, Cox’s message with the country was shared and viewed widely. He called for an end to political violence, noting Kirk’s death was tragic and an attack on the “American experiment.”
While acknowledging the current moment needs to change, Cox also looked toward the future. He asked younger Americans, no matter their political ideology, to “choose a different path” and to change the course of history so heightened political moments resulting in violence do not continue to be the norm.
In a podcast appearance with The New York Times’ Ezra Klein, Cox also looked to the past.
He noted that the 1960s was a particularly charged time in American politics and likened it to the rise of political violence seen today. Coupled with the widespread use of the internet and social media, these moments are being seen, shared and exacerbated by millions of users in the aftermath of violent occurrences, he argued.
The current moment is “very different” than when only television, newspapers or radio covered the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, he said. Now, Americans consume information, share their innermost thoughts and the algorithms online push it in an addictive manner that either provides a dopamine hit or triggers anger, Cox said.
“If you take that hate and divisiveness and polarization of the 60s and implant it into today’s different culture and media culture and polarization, it’s a recipe for something I believe far more worse,” he said.
After Kirk’s death, there’s been an eruption of discourse online. Partisan divides have become clear, with each side accusing the other of divisive rhetoric and political violence.
Some conservatives have been documenting those who celebrated Kirk’s shooting in an effort to bring professional consequences. Professors and media pundits have been ousted from positions based on their reactions. This has sparked free speech concerns, particularly after the Department of Justice had to walk back some of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s remarks about going after those who engage in hate speech.
Cox argued that no matter what the suspect’s political ideology is, things like this happen to and by people across the political spectrum. Radicalization is a human problem that transcends political parties and needs to be understood in order to be solved, he said.
“We need to try to figure out if there is something we can do societally to prevent these things from happening, and the only way to do that is to find out why they happen and how they happen, and if there is a certain belief system or a way that people went from one fairly normally held belief to something else. Trying to understand the human condition in such a way that, are there things we can do to try to prevent this from happening again?”
“I think those are worthy discussions, but if we’re only trying to find out the motive of the person or the political ideology of the person so that we can feel better about ourselves or hate a broad group of people … then that’s not healthy,” he continued.
Cox argued that the radicalization won’t go away through repression or government enforcement. It’s going to take speaking and disagreement to get there, he said.
“The only way we survive as a country, the only way that our ideals that created this grand experiment 250 years ago only survives if we can find an off ramp and continue to engage with each other,” Cox said, later adding, “We have a history in our country of very dark things and tragic things happening that wake us up in a way that allows us to find our better angels.”