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My governor wants Americans to stop shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater.
Generally wise advice, that. But it is hard to take him seriously when the theater is, indeed, on fire. And he has come to support one of the worst political arsonists in American history.
To be fair, Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah, faces a dilemma that burdens many of his party’s leaders, especially those who were active before the rise of Donald Trump and may wish to do meaningful work after he is gone. How to behave so as to have hope that the MAGA beast you deplore might eat you last.
Cox has earned himself a lot of national media attention recently for what he calls the “Disagree Better” campaign, launched a couple of years ago with a bipartisan collective of other U.S. governors. He has appeared with Democrats including Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, and Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania to promote the idea.
The initiative took on added significance in September when the right-wing firebrand Charlie Kirk was murdered while giving an open-air talk at Utah Valley University in Orem.
Cox was right to seize the occasion to repeat his call for Americans to reject political violence, turn down the temperature, get off social media algorithms that deliberately fry your brain, and learn to talk rather than fight. He took advantage of the increased media focus to take his message to such prominent news outlets as 60 Minutes on CBS and NPR’s Morning Edition.
“I’m not asking anybody to hold hands and hug it out,” he told CBS correspondent Scott Pelley. “I’m trying to get people to stop shooting each other.”
Sensible people can raise no argument to that. And it is difficult to watch or listen to Cox and argue that he is anything but sincere.
But the governor’s peace message is all but overwhelmed by the fact that he is a member of the political party that has thrice nominated, and twice elected, as president of the United States a man whose popularity and power exist only on rising air currents of fear, prejudice, division, and violence.
Trump is a hate vampire who would instantly dissolve in the sunlight if America suddenly became a peaceful nation practicing respectful politics.
Cox seemed to see that, saying in 2016 that he was not supporting Trump due to the obvious flaws in his character.
“I think he represents the worst of what our great country stands for,” Cox said at the time.
Cox didn’t vote for Trump in 2020 either, though he recognized the president as the head of his party. He rightly and courageously blamed Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol and said the president should resign because of it.
Early on, Cox said he wasn’t going to vote for Trump (or Joe Biden) in 2024, either.
Then, after Trump survived an assassination attempt, Cox turned around. He sent a letter to the president, saying he believed that Trump had been spared death for a reason and calling on him to do the one thing that every sentient being should know Trump will never do: Bring peace.
Cox now risks seeming less visionary than gullible. Like Franklin Roosevelt imagining he could reason with Stalin at Yalta. (The Soviet dictator was, in FDR’s hopeful mind, “get-atable.”)
Maybe Cox decided not to mount what would likely be a futile frontal assault on Trump’s hateful pronouncements and policies and chose to start working a quieter long game.
Maybe he just wanted to be reelected governor.
As an opinion writer and editor for the Salt Lake Tribune, I’ve been following Cox’s career since 2013, when he was plucked from relative obscurity to fill a vacant spot as lieutenant governor.
He’s no newcomer to political comity, and has always seemed sincere promoting it.
In Utah, being lieutenant governor, which Cox was from 2013 to 2021, is a real job. It includes such administrative duties as running the state’s election mechanisms, which Cox took to heart by promoting voter registration—sometimes featuring himself in goofy person-on-the-street videos—and flawlessly implementing the state’s vote-by-mail process.
When his boss, Gov. Gary Herbert, didn’t run again in 2020, Cox rode his jus’ folks, alfalfa-farmer persona (he’s also a lawyer and a telecom executive who served as a small-town mayor and state legislator in a fast-rising political career) into the governor’s mansion.
That was also the beginning of his reputation as a political peacemaker.
He and his Democratic opponent that year, a law professor named Chris Peterson, ran a joint advertisement somewhat stylistically reminiscent of the Mac vs. PC spots from about 2006. In it, each candidate asked for your vote, but spent more time calling for political harmony.
“We can debate issues without degrading each other’s character,” Peterson said.
“We can disagree without hating each other,” Cox answered.
It was a YouTube sensation. #StandUnited.
Utah hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1996, so whoever carries the GOP nomination has long been considered a shoo-in come November. Thus Cox was not risking anything by giving his underfunded Democratic rival some oxygen that he otherwise would not have had.
Cox won with 63 percent of the vote.
In 2024, the path to reelection was a little more fraught. Cox drew a right-wing, MAGA primary challenger and was denied the endorsement of the Utah State Republican Convention. But Cox gathered enough signatures on a nominating petition to still be on the ballot in the Republican primary, which he won with 55 percent of the vote.
In November, with that same MAGA opponent drawing 13.5 percent in a write-in bid, Cox won reelection with 53 percent of the vote.
Between the primary and the general, when politicians are generally expected to crabwalk from the extremes to the center, Cox shifted from a quiet Never Trump Republican to a supporter of Trump’s campaign to return to the White House. He went so far as to join Trump for a cringe-inducing—and, because it was so blatantly political, illegal—visit to Arlington National Cemetery.
As governor, Cox has held moderate to right-wing Republican positions that should have made renomination an easy matter. He signed legislation allowing Utahns to carry firearms without a permit. He favors reducing federal environmental regulations and rescinding the designation of national monuments—a big deal in a state where 64 percent of the land is federally owned.
He has backed attempts in the Legislature to gerrymander the state’s four congressional districts in favor of Republicans and signed a law banning the fluoridation of drinking water in the state.
He has flip-flopped on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in state government and education institutions—was supportive, now opposes—and supports the state’s attempts to basically ban abortion.
Cox had also given touchingly humane voice to the idea that LGBTQ+ people deserve respect and in 2022 vetoed a bill that would have prohibited transgender youth from participating in school sports. (The veto was quickly overridden by the Republican supermajority in the Utah Legislature. And Cox has since signed other legislation seen as curtailing transgender rights.)
It drew national attention and led Time magazine to dub him “The Red-State Governor Who’s Not Afraid to Be ‘Woke.’ ”
Such sentiments, along with his opposition to Trump, earned him a round of boos when he addressed the Utah Republican State Convention in 2024. “Maybe you just hate that I don’t hate enough,” Cox told the delegates.
To all outward appearances, Spencer Cox has little hate in him. But if he won’t more forcefully call out the would-be dictator who thrives on negative emotions, the cure for all this political rancor won’t be disagreeing better. It will be a country where people aren’t allowed to disagree at all. And more violence will be assured.
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