Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) on Friday sought to decrease the temperature following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, issuing a heartfelt plea for calm and unity, a message that stood in sharp distinction to that of President Donald Trump.
“We need more moral clarity right now,” Cox stated at a press convention. “I hear all the time that ‘words are violence.’ Words are not violence. Violence is violence. There is one person responsible for what happened here, and that person is in custody, will be charged soon, and will be held accountable.”
“We can return violence with violence, we can return hate with hate,” he added. “That’s the problem with political violence. It metastasizes. We can always point the finger at the other side. At some point, we have to find an off-ramp, or else it’s going to get much worse.”
Cox’s feedback got here as a breath of contemporary air amid 31-year-old Kirk’s ugly capturing earlier this week at a university campus in Utah. In addition they contrasted starkly with remarks made by the president of the USA, who shrugged off a query about “fixing the country” when requested earlier Friday about radicals on the precise.
“I’ll tell you something that’s gonna get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less,” Trump stated in an interview on Fox Information. “The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem.”
Whereas Trump did condemn political violence within the wake of the capturing, he didn’t acknowledge or acknowledge the current threats and violent assaults in opposition to Democrats, together with two Minnesota state legislators and their spouses who have been shot of their houses earlier this 12 months, and the arson at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s house, crimes Cox made be aware of.
On Thursday, earlier than a suspect within the Utah capturing was apprehended and a motive had been established, Trump stated, “we just have to beat the hell” out of “radical left lunatics.” However, he went on to induce his supporters to comply with a nonviolent path. “[Kirk] was an advocate of nonviolence,” Trump stated. “That’s the way I’d like to see people respond.”
Cox, a average Republican, has beforehand urged Trump to spend extra time making an attempt to construct widespread floor together with his political opponents, to little impact. The president typically launches wild assaults in opposition to Democrats on social media and shares conspiracy theories that don’t have any foundation in fact.
In his remarks at Friday’s press convention, the governor urged the general public to remain off social media, which he known as a “cancer,” and lamented the truth that violent acts like Kirk’s ugly capturing may be seen in video clips which have proliferated extensively on-line.
“We are not wired as human beings, biologically, historically, we have not evolved in a way that we are capable of processing [that] violent imagery,” Cox stated. “This is not good for us. It is not good to consume. Social media is a cancer. And I would urge people to log off, turn off, and touch grass.”
“History will dictate if this is a turning point for our country, but every single one of us gets to choose right now,” he added. “If this is a turning point for us, we get to make decisions. We have our agency.”
