Since he first took the microphone to shepherd the nation through the Charlie Kirk assassination aftermath, Utah Governor Spencer Cox has proven himself to be the calming voice the nation needs right now.
President Donald Trump has done a good job of being the consoler and healer-in-chief, but he isn't pulling punches. He decried the assassination and the evil leftist loons before we had a suspect. And lookie there, he was right, as usual.
We should give Trump a little latitude on tone because he has personal expertise with that whole assassination business. At least twice, leftist loons have tried to take him out, and only one millimeter of cartilage spared his life.
Now, President Trump's friend, Charlie Kirk, has been gunned down. Kirk, a religious and political star and maybe even a future president of the United States, was gunned down because he was too effective at motivating young people to look toward God and the GOP. He threatened the left's power stronghold—the schools.
Cox hasn't been shot at on the campaign trail. He hasn't been law-fared to death, debanked, and had an army of black-robed judges who have taken a vow to Beria instead of the Constitution against him, but fortunately, the governor of Utah knows a thing or two about a thing or two.
"I don’t want to get too preachy," he told the assembled media on Friday morning, "But I think it’s important that we, with eyes wide open, understand what’s happening in our country today."
Related: So, Who Was the Guy Asking Charlie Kirk About Shootings at the Very Moment He Was Shot?
"I’ve heard people say, 'Well, why are we so invested in this [case]? There’s violence happening all across our country, and violence is tragic everywhere, and every life taken is a child of God who deserves our love and respect and dignity,'" he said. But then he put the loss in perspective at this inflection point—this turning point—in our country right now.
This is certainly about the tragic death, assassination, political assassination of Charlie Kirk. But it is also much bigger than an attack on an individual. It is an attack on all of us. It is an attack on the American experiment. It is an attack on our ideals.
He's right, of course. The evil leftists pretending that every utterance, act, and thought by a Republican is "destroying democracy" are dehumanizing the right and cheapening how precious our form of government is.
These evil leftists pretend every one of us is a fascist, Hitler, Pol Pot, etc., but then someone believed them, took their word for it, and destroyed a man who was literally standing up to ensure a strong American republic. That's an act of sheer evil. You might even say that the act of destroying a man is helping to destroy democracy.
Cox has ignored the obvious and reached for the spiritual, because that's where Charlie Kirk's fans are and where he wanted to reach others.
"Now, to my young friends out there, you are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage," he said. "It feels like rage is the only option. But through those words, we have a reminder that we can choose a different path."
And he was building to something beyond. "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," he urged.
And here's where Cox hit home to the raging leftists who have been indoctrinated by critical theorists at Woke U. "I think we need more moral clarity right now. I hear all the time that words are violence — words are not violence," he said. "Violence is violence, and there is one person responsible for what happened, and that person is now in custody and will be charged soon and will be held accountable."
Related: Another Popular GOP Activist Throws Down on the Left After Charlie Kirk's Assassination
Cox explained, "Our university campuses in this nation and here in the state of Utah have been the place where truth and ideas are formulated and debated. And that’s what [Charlie Kirk] does, he comes on college campuses and he debates."
"That is foundational to the formation of our country, to our most basic constitutional rights. And when someone takes the life of a person because of their ideas or their ideals, then that very constitutional foundation is threatened," he concluded.
But he drew the media—and America—a picture of the difference between worldviews.
...I want you to look at how Utahns reacted the last two nights. There was no rioting. There was no looting. There were no cars set on fire. There’s no violence. There were vigils and prayers and people coming together to share the humanity, and that, ladies and gentlemen, I believe, is the answer to this.
We can return violence with fire and violence. We can return hate with hate. And that’s the problem with political violence: it metastasizes because we can always point the finger at the other side, and at some point, we have to find an off-ramp — or it’s going to get much, much worse.
Cox was pitch-perfect in his response to the fraught moment after this assassination.
It was as if the assassin put himself inside the Philosophy 101 ethical dilemma exercise of if you knew that a baby, child, young man would turn into Hitler, would you kill him before he kills the Jews? This killer decided Charlie was Hitler and cut him off at the pass. It's too bad he didn't consult Jesus or his God-given conscience before pulling that trigger and making the decision that ended two lives and devastated millions of people. Narcissists never do.
Discord buddies are a poor substitute for a conscience.
Cox reminded us to look for our better angels: "See, these are choices that we can make. History will dictate if this is a turning point for our country, but every single one of us gets to choose right now. If this is a turning point for us, we get to make decisions."
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