An Open Letter to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox

Dear Governor Cox,

My family and watched your interview on 60 Minutes on Sunday Night. While I had hoped the interview would do more than simply call for both sides to find common ground, I was disappointed. Throughout the interview, you repeatedly said that it was okay for people to disagree and that all you want is for people to “stop shooting each other,” so let’s start there.

I think we can both agree that people in other countries disagree, politically, right? The only countries I can think of where one party consistently receives the vast majority of the vote each election are places like Russia, Syria, and Venezuela, and we all know why those countries struggle with free and fair elections. Given what we’ve seen this year in Texas and Missouri, I am holding out hope that the US will not soon join them. But I am concerned.

Gun deaths

Despite countries like England, Canada, France, Japan, Brazil, Australia, South Korea, and many, many others having the same political debates we are having here in the United States, we outrank those countries by miles when it comes to gun deaths.

In fact, every single country I mentioned alongside the US has fewer than 0.3 gun deaths for every 100,000 people, while we have more than 4. In fact, more than 16,000 people were killed by guns in the US in 2024. In Canada, there were 286 gun deaths in that same time period. In England and Wales, there were 692 deaths for the year ending in March 2024. In Japan, there were 10 gun-related deaths in 2023. You see where I’m going with this? And while the US’s massive population factors into the raw numbers, keep in mind that our percentage of gun deaths is also off the charts compared to other nations.

It’s the guns, Governor Cox. It’s the guns. It’s the guns, it’s the guns, it’s the guns. Joe Blow in other nations simply doesn’t have the access to weapons of war that we have in this country, the way Tyler Robinson did, nor do they worship weapons in the same kind of deranged John Wayne fever dream as Americans do. You have to do some pretty serious mental gymnastics to make an argument that it’s not the guns. As I kid, it was rare to see a police officer or sheriff in my town carrying a gun. Now, I exit Wrigley Field and see a line of police officers with semi-automatic rifles. It’s madness.

And you, Governor Cox, have done little to curb the gun problem we have in this country. In 2022, you signed a bill that prohibited local law enforcement in Utah from taking steps to prevent gun violence in their communities. In 2021, you signed a law allowing permitless concealed carry in Utah. In 2024, you signed a bill into law that incentivizes schools to arm teachers. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, Utah is ranked 36th in the nation when it comes to strong gun laws. Each year, on average, more than 440 people are killed by guns in Utah.

So if you want to stop people from killing each other, perhaps you should start by making it harder for those with bad intentions to get their hands on guns. You could start in your own backyard.

Political violence on the right

But setting the gun issue aside, I take issue with your stance that we all need to find common ground. I guess I admire you in a highly relative manner, in that you aren’t calling Democrats “domestic extremists” like Stephen Miller or accusing us of blood libel against ICE agents (a phrase invoked by the Nazis against the Jews) like JD Vance. But that is faint praise. While I congratulate you on your friendship with your colleagues in Democratic states, I must admit that I feel you aren’t grasping the full picture here.

We can “both sides” political violence all you want, but it’s clear that, when it comes to violence against political opponents, one side has far more blood on its hands than the other. This graph, by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, mapping out political violence by affiliation for the last 30 years, is pretty damning.

That’s an awful lot of red. And that’s not even counting infamous murders of leaders during the Civil Rights movement, like the 1964 “Mississippi Burning” murders of three Civil Rights workers, the killing of Medger Evers, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., or all the lynchings and murders carried out by the Klan in the last century. On the same day Charlie Kirk was killed, a mass shooter killed a student and injured two others at Evergreen High School in Colorado. School shootings are so common these days, they cycle in and out of the news before most people even have a chance ot notice. And no one seems to care about the political affiliation of the shooter in that case, but I think it’s worth noting:

I’ve already written extensively about Charlie Kirk, and I don’t want to belabor the point, but I will reiterate that Kirk was not a champion of free speech. He was a bigot, a misogynist, and a political shit-stirrer who demonized immigrants and Black Americans, and cheered on political violence against the left. We don’t have to dance on his grave, but we also shouldn’t lie about who he was. The fact that he was a father and a husband doesn’t mitigate the hatred and bigotry he directed at others.

From the Southern Poverty Law Center:

If we are not allowed to criticize, or even mention, Kirk’s divisive political rhetoric without fear of backlash from the government or our fellow Americans, what does that say about us as a people?

So, let me give you the 10,000-foot view from my side of the political aisle.

The view from the left

In the last year, I have watched a billionaire who gave a Nazi salute at the Presidential Inauguration gut every agency that provided services to the American people. I have seen the Justice Department abandon investigating civil rights violations and turn to prosecuting the President’s enemies. I have seen men like you, Governor Cox, wrest control of women’s bodies away from them, putting countless women in harm’s way  —draconian abortion laws causing maternal mortality to spike and ripping women away from the children they already have. I have seen the Supreme Court and the Oval Office handed off to a man who “doesn’t know” if he’s bound to protect and defend a Constitution he appears never to have read.

I have seen the demonization of immigrants and trans people. I’ve watched military troops march through peaceful American cities. I’ve seen the acheivements of women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ community erased from government websites. I have seen the President of the United States, under the guise of caring about anti-semitism, blackmail and browbeat institutions of higher learning. I have watched him shake down law firms.

I have watched Donald Trump sell American citizenship to the highest bidders. I have seen him use the Oval Office to make billions while encouraging Congress to take healthcare away from seniors and school lunches away from children. I have seen us desert our longtime international allies, abandon Ukraine, and turn our backs on NATO. I watched Trump’s embarrassing display of hubris and vacuousness in his recent address to the UN. I’ve seen decades’ worth of environmental regulations rolled back.

Every day, I watch the President of the United States tell blatant lies about Americans, my political party, and the rest of the world. I never see men in power, men like you, Governor Cox, say anything about the constant stream of falsehoods and political rhetoric from the Trump administration.

So where, exactly, in all of that, am I supposed to find “common ground” with the other side? Should I look away from the ICE agents dragging my neighbors away from their families and shipping them off to some jungle prison where the Constitution can’t reach them? Should I delight in my air and water getting dirtier? Should I celebrate the unemployed federal workforce? Am I to ignore the women who no longer have the right to determine what happens with their own bodies? Stand idly by while violent, incompetent men like Pete Hegseth and Stephen Miller attempt to remove Jackie Robinson, Harvey Milk, and women from American History?

Am I supposed to pretend that what is playing out before my eyes every day on the news wasn’t already foretold by Octavia Butler, George Orwell, and Margaret Atwood?

I will not do that. And it’s because I love my country that I will stand up and fight for her. I was raised to recite “with liberty and justice for all” each day before school started. Now, according to the President, I’m a domestic extremist for demanding liberty and justice for all.

I agree with you that the temperature in American politics needs to come down. But we won’t get anywhere without acknowledging where the heat is coming from. We certainly didn’t see this level of hang-wringing and pearl-clutching when Minnesota state lawmaker Melissa Hortman was shot in cold blood by an Evangelical Christian who, by the way, had a list of politicians — nearly all Democrats — that he also wanted to kill.

So let me be clear: I will not find common ground with those who are complicit in our descent into fascism, believe some American lives are worth more than others, demonize the poor, the trans community, and immigrants. Asking me to do so is against everything I was told this country stands for.

What we need, Governor Cox, is not a call for everyone to get along and find common ground. What we need is a clarion call from every leader in our country, local, state, and federal, standing up for the rule of law, the principle of free speech, the system of checks and balances, the most vulnerable amongst us, and the separation of church and state. What we need is some sanity in times that are becoming increasingly insane. What we need is for men like you, Mr. Cox, to tell those on your side that none of this is normal, that none of this is okay.

If you genuinely want a better America, a less divisive America, look forward to adding your voice to The Resistance. But if all you want is for the left to stop fighting back, stop screaming from the rooftops that all of this is wrong, I guess I’ll see you on the battlefield.

The High Note

Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.

I rewatched Superman over the weekend. If you haven’t seen it, I promise it will make you feel better about the world, and you should ignore the video below. But if you have seen it, I hope this brief reflection on what it means to be human gives you the strength to get through the day.

Survive and advance out there today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down.