Cox, by contrast, blamed only the shooter himself, saying in a press conference, “There is one person responsible for what happened here, and that person is now in custody.”
A free society is premised on individual responsibility, while the worst atrocities in history have been undertaken by those who believed in collective guilt. Blaming “the left,” “the right,” “the Jews,” “the kulaks,” or any other collective can take us to dark places. Cox’s approach to the responsibility for Kirk’s assassination is manifestly superior to Trump’s: It is both truer to reality and more productive of peacemaking.
Ironically, the very “left-right” framing that Trump loves to use contributes to the widespread belief that the killing of Kirk (who admirably emphasized the importance of political debate over violence) was somehow “anti-fascist.” After all, the false “left-right” framework tells us that “conservatives” on the “extreme right” share something in common with fascists and Nazis, while “progressives” on the “extreme left” share an important essential kinship with communists and Stalinists.
Trump perpetuates this incendiary ”left-right” language, saying, “We have radical left lunatics out there and we just have to beat the hell out of them.” Cox, unique among American politicians, largely avoids this misleading and inflammatory language.
Where Trump is exploiting the moment to turn Republicans outward toward their perceived enemies on “the left,” Cox is asking us to turn inward to see what we can fix about ourselves. America’s central political problem — the ideological hatred that has now escalated into violence — is bipartisan. Fixing America means fixing ourselves, not defeating our enemies. Trump refuses to recognize this reality. “If anyone … celebrated, even a little bit, at the news of the shooting,” Cox said just after Kirk’s death, “I would beg you to look in the mirror and see if you can find a better angel in there somewhere.”
Where Trump is bombastic, Cox is humble. Where Trump represents the politics of celebrity, Cox represents the politics of basic decency. Where Trump cynically uses religion to separate good guys from bad guys, Cox sincerely uses religion as a source of moral guidance. Where Trump represents the worst of urban America, Cox represents the best of rural America. Where Trump inflames and amplifies social media wars, Cox asks us to turn away from social media altogether. Where Trump is given to incoherent rambling, Cox is grounded in common-sense thoughtfulness — something that has been conspicuously lacking during recent crises. Where Trump is apocalyptic, Cox is hopeful, asking us to make the time of Kirk’s passing the end of a dark chapter in our history rather than the beginning of a darker one.
That Cox is moderate in tone, and a uniter, doesn’t mean he lacks conviction or the strength to achieve political priorities — just the opposite. More than anything else over the past century, the Republican Party has stood for smaller government and fiscal responsibility, and Cox has balanced the Utah budget while Trump has given us record federal budget deficits. Cox has been consistently antiabortion and a defender of constitutional government — upholding federalism, the separation of powers, and the rule of law — things Trump has not been. Cox is preferable to Trump in both style and substance.
Since representative democracy in our system isn’t so much rule by the people as it is the people choosing between the offerings of our two major parties, political reform must come from within the parties. As Cox said in a “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday, “I’m hoping that a positive vision for our country, a positive vision for our party, treating everyone with dignity and respect, that’s how we get our country back.”
In his press conference after the killing, Cox hoped for an “off-ramp” from political hatred and violence in America. Spencer Cox may himself be that off-ramp. The Republican Party should turn to him, not someone like Trump, as its next leader. Cox represents the best of American political leadership as we make our way through the aftermath of this horrific tragedy.