Architects or Arsonists: Governor Cox's Constitutional Call to Disagree Better

The Context: A Nation Gripped by Contempt

In the painful aftermath of the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah, a prominent voice emerged calling for a national introspection. That voice belonged to Utah’s Republican Governor, Spencer Cox. Now, Governor Cox has expanded his plea into a new book, “Off Ramp: How to Be a Peacemaker in an Age of Contempt.” The book, part memoir and part diagnosis of America’s deep political schisms, posits a radical idea in today’s climate: that Americans can disagree, even fiercely, without dehumanizing one another and treating political opponents as existential enemies.

Governor Cox’s conversation with PBS’s Geoff Bennett laid bare the uncomfortable realities of our political ecosystem. He acknowledged the potent incentives—driven by social media algorithms, cable news ratings, and electoral strategies—that actively reward outrage and division. “Outrage works,” he conceded, stating an undeniable truth of modern politics. Yet, against this grim backdrop, Cox is attempting to prove a counter-thesis: that a supermajority of Americans, estimated at 70%, are desperate for a different path. They are hungry for problem-solving, for a return to foundational norms, and for a politics that doesn’t tear apart the fabric of their personal lives.

The Stark Data of Division

The most chilling data point Governor Cox highlights is not from a presidential poll, but from the intimate sphere of human relationships. Fifteen years ago, only about 5% of Americans reported ending a close friendship or ceasing communication with a family member over politics. That number has now quadrupled in just a few years and continues to climb. This is the visceral, personal cost of our national contempt. Cox delivers a blunt, humbling admonition: “Politicians are not worth ending friendships over. We’re just not worth it.” This personal fracturing, he argues, is the seedbed of our national dysfunction. If we cannot converse with a MAGA uncle or a “woke” niece, how can we possibly hope to govern a diverse continent of 330 million people under a single constitutional framework?

Governor Cox also directly addressed the central tension in his message: his endorsement of Donald Trump in the 2024 race, a candidate who routinely employs the very dehumanizing rhetoric—labeling opponents “vermin” and the “enemy from within”—that Cox’s book condemns. His explanation is one of pragmatic engagement. Having opposed Trump in 2016 and 2020, Cox chose a different tactic after the attempted assassination on Trump’s life: writing a detailed letter urging a unifying approach and offering collaboration on specific issues. He emphasizes his ability to work with both President Trump and President Biden on critical matters like saving the Great Salt Lake, framing this not as hypocrisy, but as a model of focused cooperation amid profound disagreement.

The Foundational Imperative: Peacemaking vs. Peacekeeping

Here is where Governor Cox’s argument transcends mere plea and touches on constitutional first principles. He draws a critical, and profoundly important, distinction between peacemaking and peacekeeping.

Peacekeeping, he describes, is the facile “go along to get along” attitude. It is the call for silence in the face of injustice for the sake of a false harmony. It demands that those whose “lives and livelihoods are on the line” suppress their urgency. This, Cox rightly asserts, is not his argument. It is a weak and ultimately unsustainable position.

Peacemaking, in contrast, is the hard, courageous work the Constitution demands. It is the active, principled pursuit of building consensus and resolving conflict without surrendering one’s core beliefs. “It’s so easy to tear down and burn it all down and destroy institutions and tear people down,” Cox notes, “but what you end up with is just ashes.” The arsonist’s path is simple and emotionally satisfying in the short term. The architect’s path—building, crafting, compromising—is “much, much harder. But it’s also much more successful.”

This is not a new-age prescription; it is the original operating manual for the American republic. The U.S. Constitution was not born from unanimous agreement. It was the product of fierce, passionate disagreement among Founders who held vastly different visions for the nation. Yet, they engaged in the brutal, practical work of peacemaking—the Great Compromises—because they understood the alternative was disintegration. The Constitution they forged does not promise any faction permanent victory. Its very architecture—separated powers, federalism, bicameralism—is designed to force collaboration, to compel disagreeing parties to work together. As Cox astutely observes, “We always think, if we just win the next election, we will never have to deal with those people ever again. And the Constitution says, no, you’re always going to have to deal with those people.”

The polarization we see today is a failure of this constitutional mindset. We have come to view politics as a war for total annihilation of the opposition, rather than as the perpetual, negotiated settlement of differences within a shared democratic home.

A Beacon of Data-Driven Hope

Amid the gloom, Governor Cox and researchers at Stanford’s Depolarization Lab provide a tangible ray of hope—one grounded in data, not just sentiment. They have tested messages of cross-party cooperation and “disagreeing better” on thousands of Americans. The results are powerful and counter-intuitive to the cynical political operative:

1. The messages have a depolarizing effect.
2. They improve support for democratic norms.
3. They significantly improve voters’ perceptions of the politicians delivering them, making voters more likely to support those candidates in future elections.

This last point is revolutionary. It proves the core thesis: Architects can still win. While negative campaigning works, positive, unifying campaigning also works, and it may be the most durable path to victory as the exhausted supermajority seeks a new direction. This is an empirical rebuttal to the claim that decency is political suicide.

The Humanist and Constitutional Mandate

As a firm defender of liberal democracy, the rule of law, and the U.S. Constitution, I find Governor Cox’s message not merely persuasive, but essential. The dehumanizing language that has become commonplace is an anti-human toxin. To label fellow citizens “vermin” or “the enemy within” is to strip them of their inherent dignity and their rights—a direct assault on the humanist principles upon which our nation was ostensibly founded. It is a rhetoric that paves the way for violence, as the tragedy surrounding Charlie Kirk’s death grimly reminds us.

The call to “disagree better” is, therefore, a patriotic and constitutional duty. It is the practical application of forming “a more perfect Union.” Perfection is unattainable, but the relentless, good-faith effort to bridge differences is the engine of progress. It is what allowed for the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and countless other achievements that required bipartisan coalitions.

Governor Cox’s project is a reminder that saving American democracy will not happen through a single election or a dramatic showdown. It will happen, if it happens, through the million small acts of courage in our daily lives: refusing to share that dehumanizing meme, listening to a relative’s perspective without immediately rebutting, engaging in local community work that transcends political labels. It requires the courage to be an architect, investing in the painstaking labor of construction, while the siren song of the arsonist promises the cathartic thrill of destruction.

The future of our republic hinges on this choice. Will we continue down the off-ramp of contempt, toward disintegration, or will we find the on-ramp back to our foundational purpose? The Constitution offers the map. Governor Cox is providing a modern guidebook. The rest is up to us, the citizens, to decide if we are worthy of the noble, exasperating, and glorious experiment of self-government we inherited.