Let's Find Common Ground - Disagree Better: Politics Across Divides. Utah Governor Spencer Cox

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

Recently, during a public event at Utah's State Capitol, Governor Spencer Cox issued a stark warning: "Either we, the people, collectively decide we're going to stop hating our fellow Americans, or we'll start shooting each other."   In our podcast, we hear why Governor Cox passionately believes that the country is heading in a dangerous direction with hyperpartisanship and political dysfunction and what he's doing about it with his Disagree Better Initiative. Spencer Cox, a Republican, is the 2023 Chair of the bipartisan National Governors Association. He selected "Disagree Better" to be the Association's current campaign. Through public debates, service projects, meetings, and public service announcements, Disagree Better brings together red and blue governors, looking at the problems of polarization and how to elevate solutions that Common Ground Committee and other groups in the bridging community are implementing. 

Disagree Better is the catchy title of a new initiative that's aimed at trying to improve the way we do politics in America. The idea for Disagree Better came from Spencer Cox of Utah, who is this year's chair of the National Governors Association. He's an unusual politician who believes that hyper-polarization and political dysfunction lead people to hate each other, and we urgently need new ways to find common ground. The easiest thing in the world for me as a Republican governor would be to watch Fox News every night and then do exactly what they say the next morning. That's the easy way to govern and I believe it's the worst way to govern. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, And I'm Ashley Melntite. In this episode, an in-depth discussion with Spenser Cox.

Yes, and we begin with how governors both red and blue are working together on disagree better. An initiative that promotes healthy conflict through debates, service projects, and public service announcements by governors from both parties. Well, Governor Spencer Cox, welcome to Let's Find Common Ground. Thank you, Ashley, it's great to be with you today. So let's first talk about disagree better. Why did you launch this initiative,

and how do we disagree better? Well, this is part of the National Governors Association. I get to be the chair for a year, a bipartisan organization with all of our governors, and every governor gets an initiative. We were thinking about a health care. How do we reduce the cost of health care? We were looking at energy prices and critical minerals. All these more traditional ideas, and I just couldn't

shake the feeling that we can't solve any of the big problems facing our country today if we hate each other. And we can't even have conversations. And so within that was born this idea to disagree better. People ask me, what does that mean? And I always almost have to start by what it doesn't mean. And what it doesn't mean is it's not just another civility initiative, although we need more civility. It's not about getting along, just being kind to each other, but we desperately need those things as well. It really is about understanding and learning,

relearning, maybe remembering how to disagree without hating each other, how to express what we believe in in constructive ways, how to have healthy conflict as opposed to the polarized, very unhealthy toxic conflict that we're seeing in the nation today. And it is about using evidence, using research, using best practices that we've known about conflict resolution for a long time.

But what we've learned in various studies that have been done about depolarization, this is not just a feel good thing. It really is a science driven, how do we work together in a pluralistic society to not end up shooting each other? And this is personal for you, isn't it? I mean, in 2020, you made this campaign ad with your Democratic opponent. I'm Spencer Cox, your Republican candidate for Utah governor. And I'm Chris Peterson, your Democratic candidate for governor. We are currently in the final days of campaigning against each other, but our common values

transcend our political differences, and the strength of our nation rests on our ability to see that. We are both equally dedicated to the American values of democracy, liberty, and justice for all people. We just have different opinions on how to achieve those ideals. But today, we are setting aside those differences to deliver a message that is critical for the health of our nation. That whether you vote by mail or in person, we will fully support the results of the upcoming

presidential election regardless of the outcome. Although we sit on different sides of the aisle, we are both committed to American civility and a peaceful transition of power. And we hope Utah will be an example to the nation because that is what our country is built on. Please stand with us on behalf of our great state and nation.

My name's Spencer Cox. And I'm Chris Peterson. And we approve this message. Why did you make that ad governor Cox? I was actually having a conversation with a friend. This was in September of 2020. I was running for for governor and we're one of those weird states where we're on the the presidential cycle. So we had in the background, of course, we had the 2020 election going on. We had we had Trump Biden. And this friend of mine said, I'm really worried about our country. And I said, I am too.

And I remember the exact conversation. I said, I'm worried that if Trump wins, the left is going to burn it down. We had seen riots and protest during that summer. And I said, and I'm worried if Biden wins, that the right is going to shoot it up, that we would have some sort of chaotic event attack. And of course, January 6th did happen. At the time, she looked at me and she said, isn't there something you can do?

And I thought, well, me, I'm not running for president. I'm running for governor of the state of Utah. What can I do? That question kind of haunted me? Um, I went home that weekend and thought about it, talked to my wife about it and uh, just came up with this crazy idea that I would ask my My opponent to film an ad with me. He was good guy Um, we we respected each other. We thought it would be good. I thought it would be good for our state to hear a little different perspective and Fortunately when I called him I he he thought that as well So we reached out to a group that had done some ads in in the state

They loved the idea and and helped us out Honestly from the time I called him less than a week later it went very quickly I think it was around the the first of October heading into that November election We released the ad on social media, you know thought it would maybe get a little play here locally We didn't expect the results of that millions and millions of hits all across the country and all across the world and And then you know to our surprise there was a big research study that was happening at Stanford Professor at the University of Utah submitted our ad to the research study. We did not know this until the study was completed, and they found that the ads had our ad had

a depolarizing effect on people, that it actually works. And so that inspired me when we started to think about disagree better, that we could use that research and try to convince other governors to do what we did. Well, speaking of depolarization, this is from the National Governors Association website and it quotes you as saying, my fellow governors from both Red and Blue State are ready to lead toward a more positive and optimistic way of working through our problems. Could you imagine a statement like that coming from Congress?

No, actually. I can't. And that's the sad part of this. We used to say that all politics is local. Now I believe that all politics is national. And of course the culture wars are carrying the day today. And I have been grateful, though, to have many governors who have stepped up. We've been able to make many of these ads. We've got several more coming. We just didn't add the governor of Kansas and the governor of Missouri, Republican and Democrat

didn't add together. I did one with Governor Jared Polis on Indiana governors been involved. We've got about a dozen others that are in process right now. And as much as I would like to try to convince members of Congress and other elected officials that this is the right thing to do to save our country, I don't believe that's hyperbole. I think we have to do this if we're going to save our country. I'm trying to convince them that it's good politics.

I think that's how you get Congress to change is if people see it's a winning strategy. There are good members of Congress. Sadly, it's become much more performative. The incentive structure is definitely not towards the work that I'm trying to do. If you want to get on Fox News or MSNBC, you need to be loud and extreme. The algorithms on social media are driven by extremism.

Good news for governors is we actually have to do stuff. Pot holes aren't partisan. There are lots of things that we have to do. And that tends to attract and lead to a collaboration where we do work very closely together. We learn from each other. We disagree, you know, passionately, but we work closer together than Congress. Do you think that if more politicians, like yourself, would model good behavior, or at least disagree better, that this would make a difference.

I do. And for many voters. Yeah, yeah. It would. And again, it's just not my opinion. That's what the research study showed. Very strongly. What's interesting is, as Republicans and Democrats were actually not as partisan polarized

as people would think. In fact, if you ask most Republicans their views on abortions, guns, whatever, and then you ask some most Democrats their views on the same things, we'll find we're actually not that far apart. There's some great work done by Rachel Kleinfeld on this. What's really dangerous though is affect polarization. Not how far apart we are, but how far apart we think we are.

And that gap that you see is very dangerous because if you think that the other side is willing to destroy our country, willing to defy democratic norms, then you're much more permissive on your side of allowing your side to do that. Because if they're going to do it, then we might as well be doing it. And so that perception gap is what is feeling a lot of the terrible behaviors that we're seeing. And what the data shows and what our ads showed was when you have two people in positions of authority or positions of power, talking about these things together,

then you realize, oh, that person isn't as crazy as I thought they might be. Those people aren't what I thought they were, and then it lowers your tolerance, your willingness to allow or yourself kind of defied democratic norms and attack the other side. The problem though is that it short-lived

because you get one positive hit from an ad like this and then you get on Facebook and you get 150 negative hits coming at you, telling you the other thing that those people are awful, those people are terrible, those people are trying to destroy our country. And that's where I think we have the problem. The other thing that those people are awful, those people are terrible, those people are trying to destroy our country. And that's where I think we have the problem.

Is this current level of polarization, polarized politics, I guess I should say, in America? Is it sustainable? I mean, can we go on this way? So the answer is no, we cannot go on this way. So the answer is no, we cannot go on this way. The same researcher I mentioned before, Rachel has talked about this as well as she studied failed democracies across time and all over the world, and she will tell you that we are passing every checkpoint towards a failed state. I don't say this lightly, I'm kind of the happy warrior.

I'm always optimistic. I don't throw things around like this lightly, but they believe, and from the research and the reading I've done as well, I truly believe that we cannot sustain this, that it ends one of two ways. We figure this out and we decide that we're going to do something different. Or we do end up shooting each other.

It ends in civil war and complete and massive failure of our institutions. And I mean all of them. January 6th would look small by comparison to where we're headed if this continues. But I do have hope. I don't want to leave that hanging because again, we know there isn't exhausted majority out there. We know that people are tired of this and it's going to take all of us. Not just politicians.

I don't think politicians can change this. In a very real way, what every one of us posts on Facebook in the morning, the way we talk about our neighbors, the way we engage with people who are different than us, we can solve this. We as Americans, we can do this. You mentioned racial client-failed governor just a note for listeners. a few episodes ago and you can go to our website and find that conversation, which was also like this one really illuminating. Let me put you on the spot a little bit, Governor Cox.

The 2024 presidential campaign is now in full swing. In recent days, I've heard Donald Trump using the phrase, The 2024 presidential campaign is now in full swing. In recent days, I've heard Donald Trump using the phrase crooked Joe Biden to describe the president of the United States. That is an example of gutter rhetoric that's become much more common in politics today. How do you respond to that, to that rhetoric? Yeah, sure. Well, I try to respond by showing a different way, right?

I try to live my life and my politics in a way that would show people that there is a better way to do this. Obviously, I don't refer to my opponents in those terms. I don't refer to the president of the United States in those terms either. I don't refer to the President of the United States in those terms either. I have serious disagreements with President Biden and his administration and some of the things they're doing. You will see, we have sued the Biden administration multiple times and we'll continue to do so.

I will continue to voice my displeasure with many of the choices that he has made. And at the same time, I think a good example of this, the President came to Utah several months ago to visit our state. There was a serious question about whether I would show up to meet him at the airport when he arrived or would participate in the activities that he was engaged in while he was here. I don't remember any other governor in my state's history ever being asked that

question. Are you even going to show up and have it be a real thing? I mean, that was just it was just assumed when the president comes to your state, you you host the president, it doesn't matter what party they're from. This is a way it's been from from the very beginning and and yet it was a real discussion point. And so I said, of course, I'm going to show up. That's crazy. And I'm going to be very respectful because the office of president is a sacred office. And something I care very deeply about.

And this is the person who represents our country to the world. And I love our country. And I want our president to succeed. And so I showed up and I welcomed him. And we disagreed better. He and I had a conversation. I wrote in the car with him to his hotel, my wife and I.

And we talked about some of the disagreements that we had. And he acknowledged those disagreements. And he even agreed to do a couple things a little differently because I think because of the respect and the way that I treated him, you know, as opposed to treating him with contempt. I love to ask people, have you ever changed name buddies mind by attacking them? And I've never changed my mind when somebody attacked me or called me names. I still believe in persuasion.

That's a better way to do politics than the name calling and, you know, getting in the gutter and kind of lowering the discourse in our country. Republican governor Spencer Cox of Utah. I'm Ashley. I'm Richard on Let's Find Common Ground. We produce this podcast for Common Ground Committee and if you go to that website there's a free offer. It's the essential guide to civil political conversations over the holiday season. Because around many family dining tables at this time of year, there will be an extra guest in the room.

The elephant, of course, Richard, politics and all the different and clashing opinions about tumultuous events in recent months. Yeah, many of us have difficulty reaching across the table and hearing from the other side. So download our free guide and make the holidays more fun and less divisive. You can find it at commongroundcommitty.org. And also consider giving us a year-end donation, either at the website or via text. You can text to donate. Text the numbers 5-3, 5-5-5 on your phone and type the letters CGC into the message. Text to donate at 53555 and then CGC.

Now back to our interview with the Governor of Utah Spencer Cox. So what's changed in politics? The political parties themselves were people win a claim and support for shouting the loudest and demonizing the other side? Used to have conservative Democrats, right? We had conservative Democrats in the South especially. Within the Democratic Party, there were liberals and conservatives. We used to have very liberal Republicans in the Northeast, kind of the New England states

as well. So both parties had this ideological diversity, which kind of brought them to a way that they had to work together and compromise. So I think that's one part of it. But we do not have that anymore. So I think that was one thing that kind of structurally that started to happen in the 80s and 90s. The rise of social media is huge for this. There's a sorting that's happening there, right? The ability to just surround ourselves and the polarization

of just traditional media, where now you get to choose your message, you get to choose your facts, you get to choose to only hear the things that you want to hear. You never have to be exposed to another point of view. And I think that that has been incredibly damaging. And then as Rachel, I don't know if she mentioned it on the podcast when she was here, but there's a third type of polarization that's really the most dangerous of all. And I think she calls it pernicious polarization. It's this idea that politicians have discovered that they can really use, and it's not new, but it's just become sharpened over time, but they can use fear and divisiveness

as a way to gain attention and power. And they have these tools, again, through social media and other venues to get to people. The last thing and probably the most important thing, I hate that I forgot this, but it's so critical. And that is the epidemic of loneliness that we're facing as a country. The degradation of mental health, right, rise in mental illness and opioid addictions and all of these things that we're losing kind of those traditional places and sources, these voluntary associations, including especially religious associations, that bring us together the places where we meet,

we meet people who are different than us, we find true friendships and we take care of one another. Those institutions have been failing over time. We're less religious than at any point in our nation's history. And if you're not going to church and not going to the Rotary Club and not going to these other places where we met people and made friendships, now you're lonely or we have smaller families than we used to have so you don't have those close connections and people are we're we're we're wired for connection. And Governor Cox you've also talked at public events in Utah about the huge

influence of social media on behavior. So yes I do believe that this has been just a terrible experiment on our young people. What should be done is is the question of the day. We are leading out here in the state of Utah. We've been very active. We passed two major bills last year. The first of their kind in the country trying to change the impact of social media on our young people. We are trying to make social media companies treat people under the age of 18 differently

than adults. We're trying to make them turn off the algorithms that are harvesting data from our young people and forcing them down these very dangerous rabbit holes. We're trying to turn social media off at night. We know that sleep is a major factor when it comes to the impact on our youth and their mental health. We recently sued TikTok here in the state of Utah and then we have a multi-state litigation going on with Meta right now and there will be more to follow. I think we'll look

back on social media very soon the way we look back on tobacco in the 50s and 60s and 70s, the way we look at opioids now, companies who knew better have taken advantage of society and especially our young people and with grave consequences. Just curious, do you still have, is one of your kids still under 18? That's correct, yes. I do still have a daughter. She just turned 17. What does she think of this? I'll tell you what she thinks. I've visited 29 high schools shortly after we passed this piece of legislation and talked to students there.

She hates that she's the only one of her friends that doesn't have social media and not real happy about that. But yet also recognizes that the dangers that are happening with her friends and kids' rage. And that was the common theme as I went around to these high schools. And I would ask them, you know, do you think that social media is damaging your generation? And I would say 98% of them said, yes, we know it.

We know it's not good for us. And I would hear these stories about kids who, you know, they get home from school, you know, they're getting ready for bed and they're like, I'm not, I'm not going to do it tonight. I'm not going to look at TikTok tonight. And then they said, well, I'm just going to look at it for a minute. And then it's four o'clock in the morning, right? And they're still on there. And these stories keep, keep occurring.

And it's just devastating. And hearing from parents who said, you know, we try to take, take our, the phone away from our kids, we try to everything everything and they find ways around it. They're addicts. I mean, they're exhibiting every example of what an addict is, every behavior of what an addict is. And so trying to help fix that has become one of my life's passions. Governor Cox, you've trained as a lawyer. You've been a litigator, which involves fighting in a courtroom. In your current work on disagreeing better,

I mean, does that fighter ever come out in you? You ever slip up and go back to that personality? Ashley, let me be very honest with you here. I'm probably the worst spokesman for this effort. It's really hard to be the face of this because you're under a microscope constantly. My nature is to fight. My nature is to attack. My nature is to tear down. And again, I think it's part of human nature. I've been trained to attack. That's what litigators do. I have to constantly be reminded, and I do forget. I've trained my staff to help me remember, to give me little signals when I start to get

a little too heated to back down, and I'm grateful for that. But I can promise you one thing. You will see me between now and I'm a free election next year, between now and next November, you will see me make several mistakes, where I didn't disagree better, where I didn't take my own advice. And hopefully you will also see me apologize when that happens and try to do better. And when you do better, you change people's minds?

You know, so I always like to be clear that this effort around disagree better is not about changing other people's minds. That's not the purpose of it or the point of it. But then I like to point out that, but it does actually work to help change people's minds. At least to allow other people to give you an opportunity to explain what you believe in. And I love the magic question. Tell me more about why you feel this way. I have seen, I've employed it.

It works. When someone's attacking me, very angry, I'll say, hey, tell me more about why you feel that way. Sometimes I have to say it two or three times. It does two things. When it calms me down, it gives me more about why you feel that way. Sometimes I have to say it two or three times. It does two things. When it calms me down, it gives me a chance to not just attack back. But it also lets the other person know

that I care about what they think. And it makes them think about what they think they think. And it's so doing. Oftentimes, we will find that we're not that far apart, not nearly as far apart as we thought we were. We may be able to find ways to come together. I use Braver Angels and their debate methods as a great example of that. We've been able to do now three Braver Angels debates on college campuses, one in Utah, one in New Hampshire, one in Colorado, and watching people in a room who have very strong

opinions and get up and be able to share those opinions in a respectful way. Oftentimes we'll lead to minds opening, to considering what generally happens is you'll find there's a third alternative that neither person had thought of before. And we've seen that here in the state of Utah. We've passed some amazing legislation around immigration, several bills on LGBTQ issues that are seen as very polarizing, where they

were able to find common ground, the most famous of which was a bill that was passed about six years ago, in which we added protections for the LGBTQ community. We had a very red state, a super majority conservative state around work and housing, but we were able to also bolster religious freedom in our state and religious freedom protections. Again, finding a third way instead of yours or mine one way or the other. And again, seeing people's hearts open, seeing minds change at least a little bit to at least tolerate and care about their opponent's point of view.

But personally, do you feel better about yourself when you're the good Spencer Cox and not the bad fighting, litigicating Spencer Cox? Always, always feel better, but not in the moment. And this is why we do it, right? That dopamine hit. It feels really great in the moment when you land a punch, when you win an argument,

when you tear someone down, there's that validation that comes from that. And by the way, also sometimes you get that validation on social media, right? When you tear someone down, there's that validation that comes from that. And by the way, also sometimes you get that validation on social media, right? When you tear someone down, your side of the mob, patch you on the back, and make you feel really good about it, you know, congratulating you. They're always short-lived. I always regret it, you know, if not the next hour, the next day, you know, the next week.

I never feel good about what I did, making that person feel small or seem small and me winning the argument. What effect do you think toxic politics might be having on people who are considering running for public office? It's a great question. It's one of my biggest fears. Great people who would love to do this and would be so good at this work who say I want nothing to do with this. And so it's kind of this, this death spiral that we're in because it gets worse, which means that attracts people who enjoy the polarization, enjoy tearing down, who thrive on the kind of narcissism that comes with this. And then that pushes even more people away, right? We have to find a way, I tell people all the time,

I know this is hard, I know it's ugly. I talk to governors, former governors who say, you know, 10 years ago this job was much more enjoyable than it is today. That's why we need to do it even more. Like my number one qualification for someone to run for office, what I'm looking for, is someone who doesn't want to run for office.

If you don't want any part of this, then you're exactly the type of person that we need. My wife and I made this deal that if we ever started really loving this job, we would get out, but we're in it because we do want to make this a better place, despite the attacks that come from trying to do that. As our politics becomes more toxic, more confrontational, what have you learned about the difference between governing and campaigning? Is the gap between these two functions way too wide right now? these two functions way too wide right now. Sadly, yes, but they don't have to be. The easiest thing in the world for me as a Republican governor would be to watch Fox News every night and then do exactly what they say the next morning. That's the easy way to govern.

And I believe it's the worst way to govern, listening to all sides, bringing people together, and then taking my political philosophy, my conservative philosophy that I believe in, and trying to use it in a productive way that benefits everyone, even people I disagree with, trying to find wins for people, that's hard, but it's so much more rewarding when we do that. It, again, it brings us to a place where everyone feels like they have a seat at the table. Again, that doesn't mean they're gonna win every time

and they can't win every time, but it's so much healthier for our state and for our nation and for all of us as individuals. And that's what I've learned. I'm doing it the right way is really hard. I hope that people can start to campaign this way. We made a decision when my wife and I decided to run for office for governor,

that we were going to campaign differently, that we were never gonna run a negative ad, we were not gonna tear anybody down, we were going to actually do service projects all across the state. We were going to leave the state better, and we found it even if we lost. I'm proud to say that we did that. We were able to win, even though I was getting negative ads at three opponents who were attacking me constantly. There was a moment in my big debates, televised debate against my three opponents.

This was in the primary, and I've shared this before, but there was a my three opponents, this was in the primary. And I've shared this before, but there was a moment where I, at the end, where I basically said, look, if I have to tear down these gentlemen to be your governor, then I don't deserve to be your governor. And that was the moment when I won the race. I had so many people come up and tell me it was a very close race, come up and tell me afterwards, like, I heard that and I knew that's what I wanted. And so I want to encourage people out there who are interested in running a different

campaign. I believe you can win. I truly do. I think there's an appetite for it, even if people are attacking you. You can turn that around and make it a positive. Gov. And Spencer Cox, thanks so much for coming on. Let's find Common Ground. Thank you both for having me.

And that's our show. Let's find Common Ground is produced for Common Ground Committee. If you'd like to hear many more shows in 2024, help us with a donation. Go to the website commongroundcommity.org or text 5.3, 5.5 on your phone and then in the message box, the letters CGC. I'm Ashley. I'm Richard and thanks for listening. This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.