A voice trying to pull us back from the brink | Vince Bzdek
By Vince Bzdek
Two weeks after Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah, it’s worth noting what didn’t happen, especially in Utah.
“I want you to look at how Utahans reacted,” Republican Gov. Spencer Cox said after the suspect was caught.
“There was no rioting. There was no looting. There were no cars set on fire. There was no violence. There were vigils. And prayers. And people coming together to share the humanity.”
I give credit to Cox himself for that. As our politics reach a new boiling point, Cox has been one of the loudest voices trying to turn temperatures down.
“Over the last 48 hours, I have been as angry as I have ever been. As sad as I have ever been,” he said at that press conference. But Cox has not given into his anger and sadness and called for heads to roll. Just the opposite.
“As anger pushed me to the brink, it was actually Charlie’s words that pulled me back,” Cox said.
“I desperately call on every American – Republican, Democrat, liberal, progressive, conservative, MAGA, all of us – to please, please, please follow what Charlie taught me,” Cox said. “Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.”
Cox implored folks on both sides of the aisle to dedicate themselves to ending this rising cycle of violence. In doing so he was echoing his longstanding calls, made in partnership with our own Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, for more civility in the nation’s political discourse, urging people to “disagree better.”
Cox launched the “Disagree Better” initiative in 2023 through the National Governors Association that he chaired at the time, and Polis vice chaired.
I heard them speak together about the push for a better politics before an audience in Fort Collins as part of CSU’s thematic Year of Democracy. At the time, I thought the campaign was idealistic, but maybe unrealistic. Now I think it is essential.
“Tell me more.” That simple phrase can spur a productive conversation between two people on opposite sides of a difficult subject, according to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, left, and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who sat down with CSU President Amy Parsons for a forum on politics and civil discourse in 2023 at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. It was part of the “Disagree Better” initiative of the National Governors Association. Colorado Politics and CSU sponsored the event.“Disagreeing better doesn’t mean don’t disagree; people have different values, different faiths (and) different political opinions,” Polis said during that talk. “That’s what makes our democracy in our country so wonderful. But it’s how you handle that. How you let it lead to a better outcome. How do you form common cause?”
Cox echoed Polis’s words in his extraordinary speech just days after the shooting, emphasizing the measured, prayerful reaction of Utahans.
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, I believe is the answer to this.
“We can return violence with violence, we can return hate with hate,” he warned. “At some point we have to find an offramp or it’s going to get much, much worse.”
He made the point that freedom of expression, the very act that Kirk was exercising when he was killed, is the absolute key to moving beyond our current polarized state.
“We will never be able to solve all the other problems including the violence problems people are worried about if we can’t have a clash of ideas safely and securely. Even, especially, especially those ideas with which you disagree.
“That’s why this matters so much.”
He placed his highest hopes for an offramp to the violence in young people.
In remarks aimed directly at the young, Cox said: “You are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage. It feels like rage is the only option. Your generation has an opportunity to build a culture that is very different than what we are suffering through right now, not by pretending differences don’t matter but by embracing our differences and having those hard conversations.”
That gets really tough when you see the other side as a threat rather than someone to work with.
But if we don’t try to, Cox believes, our country will unravel.
“History will dictate if this is a turning point for our country,” he said at the end of his speech.
“But every single one of us gets to choose right now if this is a turning point for us.”
Cox’s calming comments in the face of national fury reminded me of another politician’s memorable speech after an assassination.
One terrible night in 1968, presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy went to a park in a Black neighborhood in Indianapolis to deliver the news in person that Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot and killed.
Amid wrenching sobs and unearthly moans, standing on the back of a flatbed truck, Kennedy found his voice.
“You can be filled with bitterness. And hatred. And a desire for revenge,” he said, choosing words very similar to Cox’s. “We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization… filled with hatred toward one another.
“Or we can make an effort as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love.
“What we need in the United States is not division,” he concluded. “What we need in the United States is not hatred. What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness. It is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another.”
Every major city in the United States erupted in violence and flames and riots that night. But not Indianapolis. Indianapolis, like Utah after Kirk’s death, was peaceful and prayerful thanks to the compassion and understanding of a single leader.
At this fraught time, I thank heaven that we have perhaps found another leader who wants, more than anything, to “make gentle the life of this world.”
