How to disagree better with Utah Governor Spencer Cox

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0:59or emotion rather than data. If you want to challenge your assumptions about philanthropy, check out a podcast called Giving Done Right, hosted by Phil Buchanan. Produced by the Center for Effective Philanthropy,

1:11Spencer Cox: it brings on experts and nonprofit leaders to examine the evidence behind effective giving, whether you're donating$20 or$20 million. The show tackles philanthropy's hardest questions, from evaluating nonprofit health to understanding what actually drives social change. It gives you the framework to give smarter and maximize your real-world impact. It's a masterclass on how to rethink generosity so your dollars actually create measurable change. Check out Giving Done Right wherever you listen to podcasts. Every single one of your listeners will be able to go and find some video of me somewhere of me not doing the things that I'm asking people to do right now.

1:50Spencer Cox: Okay, so I just want to be very clear. I get this wrong. This is the hypocrisy disclaimer? Absolutely. This is the hypocrisy disclaimer. It's really hard to be like the disagree better guy when you screw up because everybody lets you know. And so I just want to say that right now. Even though I believe this, I don't always get it right, but I'm trying. Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking, my podcast with Ted on the science of what makes us tick. I'm an organizational psychologist and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people who explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.

2:27Spencer Cox is the 18th governor of Utah. His family's lived there for six generations, and he's a farmer and a Republican. He's also a rare politician, making what I think is an earnest effort to find ways for us to disagree respectfully and become less polarized along the way. He explores that in his new book, Off-Ramp, How to Be a Peacemaker in an Age of Contempt. We have plenty of disagreement in this conversation. I found it respectful, And I hope it stretches your thinking.

3:02I think I'm one of the many people in this country who is just exhausted and disgusted with the polarization that exists in politics. And it seems to me that we should go back to the era of Lincoln and our team of rivals. That's where I want to begin, Governor Cox.

3:20Spencer Cox: Well, that's a heck of a place to begin, Adam. Thank you. Thank you for having me on. Look, I do feel that Americans are exhausted like you are, that they're tired of the polarization. They're desperate for something different, that there's a market failure in our politics right now. And the first party to figure that out, and maybe it won't be a party, but the first group to really figure that out, I think is going to do very well in American politics in the years to come. I hope you're right. Right. So I think a little personal color on why this is an unlikely mantle for you to be assuming would be fun.

3:56So you've described yourself as a hothead. You have disagreed worse many times. Give us a little bit of a flavor of the personal demons and maybe embarrassments that you're trying to transcend in this project.

4:10Spencer Cox: Oh, wow. OK, so I grew up in a very small town in a rural part of the country. I grew up on a farm and in small towns, we all knew each other, weren't afraid to fight when we had to. But yeah, I grew up with a little bit of an anger management problem. It's something that I still fight. This is super embarrassing. I got thrown out of a flag football game that I was coaching my kids in. The ref and I, we knew each other very, very well. There was a rules issue and I was pretty sure I was right. And he was pretty sure that he was right. And I didn't curse at him or anything like that, but I was obnoxious and a little belligerent.

4:50Spencer Cox: And so he threw me out and I deserved it. I apologized to him profusely, apologized to my team and the other team afterwards. We all had a good laugh and that was it. But those are the types of things that I struggle with. And certainly when you get into politics, it's so easy to, instead of our better angels, as Lincoln would say, our worst demons come out. And when we argue that fight or flight mode is a real thing, right? Especially in politics. And we get in a defensive posture. When someone comes up to me and is angry at me and starts to yell at me, I immediately go into a defensive posture.

5:26Spencer Cox: And, you know, I'm not going to flight, so I'm going to fight. And certainly it's something I have to check myself all the time. Be curious, listen, kind of de-conflict, and then let's engage and see if we can't engage in a more positive manner. the outcomes are much better when I do the latter, not when I fight. I've never heard anybody change their mind because they were yelled at or demeaned or trashed. If we're actually trying to persuade and I really try to be persuadable. I do. I try to listen. I sit down. I take in all sides. I try to push back on my own thoughts. I ask myself, how did I come to believe that?

6:03Spencer Cox: Why do I believe it? Do I still believe it? And, you know, 90 plus percent of the time I do. And so, yeah, I know why I believe this and I appreciate that. But I have changed my mind and I'm grateful when other people change their minds too. I want to talk about the rethinking you've been doing first, because you've made a case in your book that polarization is actually not the root cause of our problems. And I found that surprising and also intriguing. And I'd love to hear more. Well, yeah, look, polarization, I think, is a symptom of a deeper problem, a core problem. And I'm not the first person to write about this or research this, but as a social scientist, you know that we are wired for connection, that we need other people and we need tribes.

6:44Spencer Cox: We're a tribalistic people. We always have been. And we're losing those healthy tribes, those volunteer entities. People aren't joining bowling leagues. And we're replacing that with very, I believe, unhealthy tribes. And I think that's what's leading to this intense polarization that we're experiencing. Wow. Okay. So you think we've evolved, not even evolved. You think we've defaulted to the wrong kind of tribalism. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I always want to point this out that when I'm talking about kind of healthy politics and healthy tribalism, it does not mean that we all have to get along, that we all have to agree.

7:21Spencer Cox: As the author Yuval Levin has said, that unity is not believing the same thing. Unity is acting together. And the Constitution is the thing that forces us or gives us the framework for acting together, knowing we won't always get our way, but there's a path forward to at least getting some of what we want if we're willing to build those coalitions. But this tribalism doesn't allow for that. If politics becomes your religion, then everyone who disagrees with you is a heretic and evil. And if half the country is evil, then you start to treat them with contempt, which isn't just that I disagree with you.

7:56Spencer Cox: It means I despise you. And if I despise someone, it's really hard to work together to solve a problem or get anything done. I think you're onto something really important here. I think what you're saying tracks with a long history of research on group polarization, where if you get a bunch of people who have roughly similar views together in a group to talk, they will generally come out more extreme than they did before because they're essentially creating an echo chamber and a filter bubble together. And also the way you gain status in a group of like-minded people is to be the exemplar in that group, which is often the most extreme voice.

8:32But tell me if you've already seen this paper. There's a brand new paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, which I know you read for fun. All the time. It's called, Whoever is not with me is against me, the moderate as out group effect. Have you caught this one?

8:45Spencer Cox: I have indeed, but please keep going. Well, the core finding across five studies that were all pre-registered, thousands of people, is people who are partisan or extreme or polarized on a given issue perceive moderates as enemies, not non-allies, but actually as opponents. And I'm like, okay, why is that happening? And when is it happening? My read of the research is it happens when the issue is moralized. So you think your position is right and therefore others are wrong. And also the quote unquote other side is a threat to you, to your group, to the people you care about, or to your country.

9:23And you end up judging moderates for not hating your opponents and therefore their opponents too. So when you said contempt, I immediately thought of this paper and thought, okay, wait. So if somebody is a moderate and they're not opposed to my view, but they don't have contempt for the people I hate, I end up hating them and seeing them as part of the enemy group too. What is that? That makes no sense to me as a social scientist or a human being.

9:52Spencer Cox: It may make no sense, but it's real. And I can assure you it's real. I've certainly felt it. I've been the target of it. And it's so prevalent in our politics today. I'm really glad you brought up kind of the in-group versus out-group dynamics. And right now what we're seeing is a more tightly held in-group dynamic, a smaller circle than we've seen in politics in the United States for a long, long time. It's not that it's never happened, but it's certainly happening again, going back to that constitutional order of things. The framers were really smart. They were students of government, yes, but they were more students of human nature and who we are, why we make the decisions that we make.

10:29Spencer Cox: And they tried to build a government that would push back on our worst impulses. One of our worst impulses is this in versus out group dynamic. And so what they decided was, hey, we're going to make it really hard to get anything done. First of all, Congress is supposed to be the most powerful branch, not the president. And it's going to be really hard to get anything done in Congress because they're going to represent, again, a vast array, a very pluralistic society, very different. Even the original colonies, the original states were very different. You know, Georgia was very different than Massachusetts, was very different than Virginia, was very different than Pennsylvania.

11:04Spencer Cox: And so if you want to get anything done, you're going to have to expand to include more people. You're going to have to build coalitions. You're going to have to work together. You're only going to get 80 % of what you want instead of 100 % of what you want. And we've completely lost the plot there. Yep. I want to talk a little bit about the use of social science to improve America. I think in addition to being one of the most critical voices in our country for depolarization and decontemptification, not a word, but I'm I like it. I like it. I think you have been a force for getting people who disagree to disagree more respectfully.

11:45I think that's been a profound effect of your leadership, both in Utah and on the national stage. And I commend that. You've also, I think more surreptitiously, been a real champion of using evidence to inform your thinking, your policies. And I would love to know, how do we get more politicians to do that. And how has it changed your leadership?

12:09Spencer Cox: Yeah, thank you for those kind words, Adam. When I became governor, I challenged my team to do evidence-based policy making at every turn and finding the right entities who can provide us with the evidence to make those decisions. I don't know exactly the best way to get other people to do this, except that at least when it comes to governors, one of the things that's really cool about our constitution that was the most unique thing. Dual sovereigns was very new. And what I mean by that is federalism, this idea that most of the powers of governing would be left to the states. And we've gotten away from it a little bit, but the reason I love it is going back to that original conversation, California is so different from Utah, is so different from Florida, is so different from Michigan.

12:56Spencer Cox: And one of the ways to depolarize us is to allow states to have those differences. So the reason I say that is the states were meant to be laboratories of democracy. And if Utah is having more success than other states in certain areas, those states are going to copy what we're doing. And I see it all the time. Like governors really do work well together. I love your vision of states as laboratories of democracy. And I think you're spot on that if you create social proof by demonstrating that you can accomplish things, then people want to know how you did it. And they won't just, I think, in the case of governors, governors are actual leaders, unlike members of Congress.

13:37But I think one of the great things that comes out of then, you know, governors wanting to know, well, how are you able to do something like boosting literacy is they get a specific solution, but then they also learn about your decision making process. And that social proof to me is one of the most compelling ways to spread evidence based policymaking.

13:56Spencer Cox: Well, I think you're exactly right. And we're seeing it. There's a couple other areas that may be of interest to your listeners when it comes to energy. We know we need more energy production in this country. We're pretty desperate for it right now. Of course, with the rise of AI and all of the issues that come with that, we're just consuming more energy. And how do we do that in a way that protects the environment and that gives us the best possible returns, helps our economy not to slow down? And we're seeing that on all sides of the aisle as well. Republicans and Democrats are working together.

14:29Spencer Cox: Utah's leading the nation with geothermal. It always surprises people that Texas is leading the nation with solar power. I feel this is where negative news sells so much better than positive news. but feel bad that people don't get to see what governors see every day, where we actually do work together. We care about each other. We want to be successful. We steal each other's ideas. And when we have these conversations, if you came from another planet and just landed in the room, you would not know who the Republicans and the Democrats were in that room when we're talking about these major problems facing our country when the governors get together.

15:05More of that, please. Yep. You mentioned AI. I have to ask you because we have watched Dario from Anthropic put out a proposal to pace or slow the progress so that we don't get to recursive self-improvement and models that could hack major infrastructure or seed biochemical weapons or something else disastrous. We saw Dario put that proposal out. We saw Sam and Elon and Demis, among others, say, I agree, which is almost unthinkable. I've heard a lot of people raise skepticism about that. They think that there's some level of attempt at regulatory capture happening there, or this is self-serving and wanting to actually signal that our technologies are so powerful that they're dangerous.

15:53Whatever that is, I have spent personal time with each of those AI pioneers. I imagine you have too. I feel very confident they are genuinely scared. They are concerned about what could happen. And so, you know, to see that coalition of the who's who creating AI saying, we need to put some guardrails. We need government to intervene. This needs to be an industry that is regulated and it needs to be regulated now. We then saw Donald Trump say, nah, doesn't need to happen. How are you going to change his mind, governor?

16:26Spencer Cox: Well, we're definitely going to work on it. And this is something that we started on a couple years ago in Utah. We call it our pro-human AI approach. We set up an office of AI regulation, but it wasn't just about regulation. Because again, I don't think government's good at regulating this stuff. We're so far behind any of this. And we knew that. Look, my legislature... No, go ahead. No, no, I was just going to say, wait, did I just hear a Republican governor leading the way on AI regulation? You did. What planet am I on? And I'm here to tell you why, because I also think government is bad at this.

17:01Spencer Cox: And so what we did was we hired one of the top AI mathematicians out of a university in Utah, and we created a policy lab. And what happens is the companies who are releasing these tools, so if you have an AI product that you're very passionate about and you don't want to kill people, right? So you're worried about that as well. So we bring them in and we actually work together side by side. And we put in guardrails. We work with the companies to make sure that we're not blocking other companies out. We don't want any regulatory capture. We want people to be able to succeed here. We actually want to solve problems.

17:36Spencer Cox: So we've done it with AI chatbots for kids. We're working on it right now in the medical fields and with prescriptions to make sure that these models are doing what they're intended to do, that there is always a human in the loop, and that the computers and robots are serving us and not the other way around. If these aren't going to be good for humans, then they should not exist. So I want to do the office hours portion of our conversation. This is the point where I give you the mic and you get to ask me a question. What do you want to know? Okay, so there's something that I write about in the book that's called the perception gap.

18:14Spencer Cox: Duke Polarization Lab, yes. Yeah, so this concept, I'll try to explain it briefly, that if you ask Republicans what they believe, a thousand Republicans, you ask a thousand Democrats what they believe, and then you kind of plot that out, and you take the median or even the average Republican and the Democrat on 20 of the most polarizing issues in the country, we're actually not that far apart. It's pretty shocking how close together most Republicans and most Democrats are. And yet, when you ask a Republican what they think Democrats believe, and you ask Democrats what they think Republicans believe on the same issues, and then you plot those answers, we are a mile apart.

18:53Spencer Cox: My question to you is, why is that? And how do we help each other understand that we're actually not that crazy and we're not that far apart? It's a great question. I think the first part of it is easier than the second. I think we've done a much better job explaining and unpacking it than we have changing it. But I think we have some interventions that can help. And you're a poster child for several of them. I think just the why part. I think what's going on there is we have created a caricature of the other side that people believe. And we have social media that's amplifying the extreme. And so you are both hearing about and seeing the edge of the spectrum and believing that is actually the majority or the typical.

19:41And it doesn't help then that when you interact with people on those extremes, it only reinforces what you thought to begin with because you come in with that assumption and then expectations are self-fulfilling prophecies. I think that what that has created is a world in which our affective polarization far exceeds our cognitive polarization. In other words, we have much more intense animosity toward the other side than we do division in what we want and belief. And I think then what that tells me is that our interventions have got to start with the affect. What we need to do is actually change how people feel about the other side.

20:20It's not going to do that much good to just highlight the perception gap and say, hey, actually not all Republicans or not all Democrats. What we need to do is get people to have unexpectedly positive experiences with people that they would have stereotyped. And I think that's what a lot of your work is about. I think that it's not always enough to talk to the other side. I think what we've learned through now about a century of evidence is collaborating with the other side works better. working to solve a common problem that we all agree is really important. I think AI could be the great unifier.

20:55I think that, I think Democrats and Republicans hate AI for very different reasons, but they all hate it. Like whether you don't want a data center in your backyard, whether you don't want AI to murder us, whether you don't want AI to think for us, I think that it's not hard for anybody to find a common enemy in AI that's anti-human or neutral on humans, as opposed to pro-human, as you put it. And so I would actually personally start there. I would say, look, we all have concern about some major threats to AI. It's threatening education and critical thinking and learning. It's threatening human creativity.

21:31It's threatening jobs. I think that's probably a big issue for your constituents. And we don't know what that's going to look like yet, but we know some jobs are going to be displaced. Others are going to be replaced. And we're concerned about that. We're concerned about its impact on the climate. Guess what? I don't care why you are worried about AI. You are worried about it. How are we going to make sure that it's not bad for humans and bad for humanity? That to me is where we began fighting affective polarization because we realized, wow, I think, Governor, this is the closest thing we've seen in my lifetime and yours to an alien invasion in more ways than one.

22:07And I mean, no responsible person lets a crisis go to waste. And I think this is our moment to act on it.

22:15Spencer Cox: I think you're exactly right. You know, I have for a long time, I've really been pushing against social media companies to hold them accountable for the harms that they've done to our kids. And artificial intelligence is that times a thousand times a million, the potential out there, the way you captured that I think is right. It should be, I hope, without having to have the worst case scenario actually happen as a way to bring us together to solve a common problem that isn't just an American problem, but is a humanity problem. So how do you think about getting people to accept that, okay, there's an extreme group, and I think this is true both on the left and the right, where they look at moderates and say, the fact that you are not on my side means you are either agreeing with the other side or you are failing to condemn the other side, and both of those things are immoral.

23:12What do you say to get people to rethink that stance? How do you get them to expand the tent?

23:16Spencer Cox: Well, first of all, we have to make a conscious decision to get out of that echo chamber that you talked about, that bubble that we're in. It's never been easier to surround yourself with voices that are just like you. Confirmation bias is a powerful drug. So the first thing I ask people to do is to turn off social media, to pull yourself out of the algorithm, to get outside and actually engage with people. The second thing we have to do is spend time with people who are different than us. So I'm going to consciously listen. I'm going to be curious. I'm going to be a scientist. I'm going to have some intellectual humility and I'm going to talk to someone whom I disagree with and I'm going to listen to them.

23:54Spencer Cox: And so I encourage people all of the time to go have breakfast, go grab a coffee or a hot chocolate, have a conversation with someone who is very different than you are. read a publication, a newspaper that has a different bent than you are conservative leaning or left leaning. So you're kind of understanding how people are viewing the news. And then service is the best one I can recommend. When we're serving together, it's hard to hate people up close. When we're actually giving back and building up our community, it helps back to the Tocqueville lessons that I shared before. But it also helps us realize that there are multitudes in each of us, that people aren't just their politics.

24:34Spencer Cox: Getting rid of that identity first is going to be so helpful. And we can break out of that, but it has to be a conscious decision by every single one of us. So in theory, that makes a lot of sense to me. In practice, it's really challenging because politics was different 20 years ago. So let me just disclose, I do not belong to a political party. I do not believe in political parties. I vote on the basis of leadership character first and leadership competence second. And as somebody who studies leadership, I believe that's my responsibility. But I would prefer if America voted that way too. But I understand that parties help with building coalitions and getting things done.

25:15But I probably have a bigger following on the left than the right. And when I make the kind of argument that you just made, what I hear back is, But how can I possibly have a conversation with someone who saw January 6th and saw Donald Trump subvert democracy and voted for him again? That is just a non-starter for me. How can I possibly want to talk to you? And I'm the one who's supposed to take the initiative? No thanks, Governor.

25:44Spencer Cox: Yeah, yeah, I hear that all the time. That's the argument I hear the most from the left. from the right. What I've traditionally heard the most is, oh, you just want me to go along to get along. You just want me to compromise my values. You just want us to hold hands and kumbaya and all get along. Although that is changing now, I'm starting to hear a little more from the right, the very argument that you just made. You know, how can I have a conversation with those people who tried to hide Joe Biden's mental lapses and let millions of illegal immigrants cross the border. I'm starting to hear those things from the right as well.

26:18Spencer Cox: So the first thing I like to ask is, okay, so how is that working out for you? Trust me, we've been doing the contempt thing in our country now for several years. Is it working? And I haven't had anybody yet tell me that yes, it's working. And number two, I really believe and encourage people to just try it. And what you find is that people are so much more complicated than just the person that they voted for. And I will also just tell you, like, man, you'll just be a happier person. The most miserable people I know are the people who refuse to have any conversations with anyone who doesn't vote exactly the same way they are.

26:57Spencer Cox: You know, for a little while there, there was a trend of thought that people should be cutting off family members who had even political disagreements with them, that they would be healthier if they just cut those people out. And the more they've researched that, they're finding that's actually not the case, that you're far better off not ending those relationships. While I talk quite often about how to fix our country, the most important piece of the book to me is how to fix our personal relationships. We've seen about a four times increase in the number of people who have lost a family member or a close personal friend to politics just over the past 10 years.

27:32Spencer Cox: It used to be about 6 % of Americans. Now it's about 25 % have lost a family member or a close personal friend to politics. And I give some ideas, some pointers about how to fix that and how to actually have a conversation with someone. Just a starter. And it's really easy. All you have to do is ask this one simple request, and that is, tell me more about why you feel this way. It's magical what happens. I use it all the time. Nine out of 10 times. It really changes everything. Somebody who's hostile to me, it shows I care about them. It shows I'm interested in them. It shows I'm curious about them.

28:08Spencer Cox: And then I just listen. I don't listen to debate. I don't listen to argue. I just take a breath and I let them tell me everything they want to tell me. Sometimes I have to ask them two or three times, but almost all the time I find something we have in common. They believe that thing because they love their family, their community, their country. And then I can say, yeah, I love my country too. I'm glad we have that in common. Most of the time then they'll let me also tell them why I believe what I believe. Not always, but most of the time we get a chance to do that. And it's the only way. It's just the only way.

28:41Spencer Cox: I mean, again, not talking to half the country isn't going to solve any of the problems that the people listening to your podcast actually want to solve. No, no, it won't. Although I will say I find myself wanting to tweak the question a little bit and not ask why do you feel this way, but how did you come to this view? And I like that tweak for two reasons. Number one, oftentimes when people explain the reasoning behind their beliefs, they become more entrenched and sometimes more extreme too, because they're essentially reinforcing their own confirmation bias. And now they're advocating for it and trying to persuade you of it.

29:16Whereas when you ask them how, they're telling you more of a story. And that I think goes to the second point, which is they are rewinding the clock to a time when they didn't believe that, which subtly reminds them that their belief is malleable. It was formed at a particular point in time, it can be reformed at another point in time. And so I like to just to get the same information with a different frame to say, okay, how did you arrive at that view? Like, tell me about the thought process and how it evolved. And then also tell me what you think could happen in the next decade that could shift that view again.

29:50Spencer Cox: I love that piece of the question. But what I love about asking those questions is a lot of people really haven't thought about why they believe what they believe. Sometimes we're just repeating back what we heard on cable news last night, or their favorite talking head said this thing, and they really haven't given it much thought. And so by asking the question and engaging, it really does cause them to kind of pause and question what they do believe. It makes them much more curious than they maybe were before. And can I share one that happened to a friend? It's one I share in the book. He was part of the The LGBTQ leadership in the state of Utah were very conservative state, a super majority Republican state.

30:33Spencer Cox: And he was kind of a, you know, a traditional advocate, right? He would cherry pick the worst thing anybody said, and then he would blast it out and fundraise off of it and was very effective that way, but not effective at all in getting anything done for the people he represented in our state. And to his credit, he said, you know, I actually want to try to get something done. I want to try to build coalitions. I want to try to work with people. I have to work with people who disagree with me in Utah if I'm going to have any chance. And so that's exactly what he did. And he went to work. He stopped assuming the worst in people.

31:08Spencer Cox: He started giving grace even where maybe it wasn't worthy of grace. And then he did something truly radical. He bought a booth at the Republican State Convention. So these are 4 ,000 delegates. They tend to be the most more passionate, let's say, Republicans in the state. And first time this had ever happened, many of them were very angry that he would do this or that they would allow him to buy a booth even. But he shows up and he's having these conversations and he's doing just what we said. Please tell me more about why you feel this way. And at one point, a man came up who was very angry, almost verging on violence.

31:43Spencer Cox: I mean, he was screaming at them. And Troy Williams is the name of the advocate who went up to this man and he said, hey, I can see you're really angry right now. And he said, do you mind just sharing with me. Why do you feel so passionately about this? And the man did. And Troy listened intently and kept asking questions. And it turned out this man had had some family experiences that were deeply disconcerting and troubling to him. After that, Troy said, can I share some of my thoughts with you? And the man said, okay. And he listened. And Troy talked about growing up as a gay man in Utah and how at times he felt welcomed, but other times he felt ostracized and some of the rough experiences that he had had.

32:22Spencer Cox: And then he did something truly remarkable at the end of the conversation. He said, now I'm going to give you the last word, anything you want to tell me. And this man who was just angry at the beginning of this conversation, he paused for a second and then he gave Troy a hug and he apologized to him. Now, again, to your listeners who think I'm crazy and I'm never going to engage with those people, That lesson to me was just a game changer. Now, it's not always going to happen that way. I get it. But it happened this time. And I'm just here to tell you, that guy, he didn't go out and put a pride flag on his Chevy truck, I'm confident.

33:00Spencer Cox: But the next time he had a conversation with someone, I truly believe it was different. I truly believe that he will think differently about the way he treats other people. He probably didn't go out and vote for Joe Biden. But in that instance, he made a tremendous difference. And that's ultimately how we made it 250 years and how we're going to make it 250 more.

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36:15Governor, you are an odd poster child for better disagreement, for peace building.

36:21Spencer Cox: Look, I've been trying to do this work for a long time. So and I've been trying to practice what I preach. I practiced it with Joe Biden. I tried to convince him to pardon Donald Trump when there was an attempt on his life in Pennsylvania. I felt very strongly that I needed to try to have a relationship with him and that I needed to try to work with him more closely. And I'm assuming that's what you're referring to in that I decided that I would support him. And so he and I have had lots of conversations about disagreeing better. And it's one area where we have some significant disagreement. Yeah, I'll say.

36:57Wow, there's so much to react to there. There are two tracks I want to go down here. One is accountability for people in power. Sure. Let's start there. And then I want to go to your experience of endorsing Trump after resisting that pressure for a long time. I understand the logic for presidential pardons, which is this could very quickly be a race to the bottom. We're going to have two parties that are basically trying to throw the opposing party's candidate in jail. And we could just devolve into no one credible ever wanting to be president or some version of that. And I want to hear your case for it in a minute, but that's the standard case that I hear is we just need to take the high road here.

37:39I think that at least half of the country believes that politicians are free from accountability. And the more power you gain, the more you essentially are not responsible for your actions anymore. And that is one of the core problems with the country. And we are in a world now where we have reelected somebody who denied the results of a free and fair election and who tried to steal power. And if we do that, what do we have left? And if we're going to pardon a candidate, what is left? The Constitution is meaningless. I'm inclined to be on that side of the debate based on my principles. I would love to hear your case for the other side.

38:22And can you convince me to rethink this and maybe our audience to rethink it too? I'm not sure that I want to or that I want them to, but I'd sure like to hear your most compelling argument.

38:31Spencer Cox: Yeah. So I'm not even going to try to convince you to rethink that because, I mean, I don't disagree with what you just stated, that politicians do need to be held more accountable, not less accountable. So let me just park that there and then tell you the case that I was making. And my concern was, and the concern I shared with President Biden at the time, was where our country was headed. And that it was going to take something very powerful to try to change that narrative, to try to break this cycle of polarization and violence that we're experiencing and that nothing that was happening was working.

39:12Spencer Cox: And that possibly a show of a magnanimous, arguably virtuous show of support to kind of your mortal enemy, right? It's the love your enemy piece, that type of unconditional love for people who don't deserve our grace, arguably, can change the course of history. And my hope was that possibly something like that to pardon Donald Trump could reset. But that was my reasoning. And I doubt I convinced you or anybody else. And again, I'm not trying to because that is a very virtuous view that politicians need to be held more accountable. So I'm glad we're on the same page about accountability. From a liberal's perspective, the most troubling part of your argument is that if you want to stop a cycle of violence, you should probably intervene with the party that began it on January 6th and the president that incited it or egged it on.

40:11And to reference more recent examples of violence against Republicans, when Republicans were the initial perpetrators of violence in the cycle, feels a little bit backward, doesn't it?

40:22Spencer Cox: Well, look, every party can find a way to justify whatever it is they want to justify by pointing at the other side. Like, we're really good at this. We've been good at it for a long time. It's pretty clear that we were headed this direction long before Donald Trump ran for president. And Donald Trump recognized that and said, hey, okay, this is the direction we're going. I can do this. And it proved to be really successful. And so what I believe and what I'm seeing out there right now is that 70 % of Americans are tired of what's happening and tired of the polarization right now. And they're hungry for something different.

40:58Spencer Cox: And that's the Madisonian nature of our politics. Like if people don't like what is happening now, they don't like divisiveness, then they'll choose something different if it's offered to them. Somebody's going to have to be the bigger person or the bigger party because there's enough to go around for all of us to just keep justifying our behavior, justifying our contempt. They deserve it. They deserve it. How could you vote for that person? And that's going to lead to more people shooting each other. Well, I think that that's a case for hope. The idea that showing respect for your opponent and actually pitching an inspiring vision of the future can elicit support from voters.

41:45I think that is some of the best news I've heard for American politics in a long time. It makes me wonder, however you feel about Donald Trump, it's hard to argue with the reality that he poured a giant tub of gasoline on the fire of contempt that was burning. It makes me wonder, do you regret supporting Donald Trump?

42:12Spencer Cox: So I get asked this question a lot. And the answer is no, I don't regret that support. And let me explain why. because I get to have these conversations with him. Look, when Charlie Kirk was assassinated, it was an unbelievably dark day and a day in which I think things could have gone in a lot of different directions. I was very worried that they would. I was hearing those calls for civil war, for retribution, for revenge. And I had multiple conversations with the president. And you have to remember that Charlie was his friend. And but but we had managed to build a relationship with each other in which we could have some pretty hard conversations.

42:57Spencer Cox: And I'd made a pretty impassioned plea to people to lower the temperature. And he was asked that next day, you know, Governor Cox is calling to lower the temperature. Do you support him? And he said, I support him 100 percent. And in that moment, I was so very grateful for that. So I'm trying to practice, again, what I'm preaching here and do so with him. And so that's been a tremendously positive thing for me and for our state and ultimately for our country. That makes sense to me. I think you shouldn't have to endorse him to be able to converse with him. You should be able to sit down with him and say, as the governor of Utah, I want to prevent Americans from murdering each other.

43:38And I need your support to do that. That should be a conversation that the president of the United States welcomes, regardless of whether the governor endorsed him or not. Sure.

43:48Spencer Cox: And that's fair. I should qualify. I don't think I needed to endorse him to have that conversation. And in fact, look, we had dinner with all of the governors last year at the White House with the president in which he said, hey, Democrats, none of whom endorsed him. You can call me anytime and I will take your call first. I want to have conversations. Those are things that don't get reported very often. You are correct that I feel comfortable I could have had that conversation without having to endorse him. That's good to know. It makes the do you regret endorsing him question more complicated than if the fact that you've been able to work together is one of the reasons that you don't regret it.

44:23Spencer Cox: Well, certainly I've been able to work more closely with him because of that. There's no question about it. Got it. Okay. So some would call that a Faucian bargain and others would say you're just doing your job. I'm definitely doing my job. And again, remember, underneath all of this, I'm elected to represent the people of Utah. That's what I do. And I'm here to help the people of Utah, not to go on my own crusades. that matters.

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46:31Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, email, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the Headline Hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. That's goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini.

47:14Okay, let's go to a lightning round. I'm going to try to keep you to a word or a sentence at most. I'm a politician. Are you sure? Okay. First question is, what is something you've rethought recently policy-wise?

47:29Spencer Cox: AI, for sure. It's AI. Yeah, I was pro and now I'm very concerned. I think a lot of us have experienced that rethinking moment. What is the worst advice when it comes to polarization off-ramps that you see given regularly? The worst advice I see given regularly is that it's just not worth it. I hear it all the time. It's like, we have to have contempt. Contempt actually gets things done, but you won't solve long-term problems. Agreed. I think the evidence is very clear on that. If you could enlist anyone from history to help us steer the ship of America in a better direction for a dinner party, who are you inviting?

48:13Spencer Cox: That's the easiest question you've asked me. And it's where we started. It's Abraham Lincoln. Look, I actually think that so many of our problems right now are because he didn't get to finish his job. And if he had not been assassinated, I think our country would be a very different place. Who else do you bring into the table with him? Ooh, who else? I probably bring George Washington with him just because he's the other guy that found a way to rise above it all. The first, you know, one of the only people in history to ever willingly give up power when he didn't have to. And that's an example we could use again.

48:47Spencer Cox: Any non-politicians you think would add value? Oh, yeah. MLK would definitely need to be back at the table. Martin Luther King Jr. I would bring Bono in just because I, and he's not gone, but I need somebody who can sing for us. and I'm a big U2 fan. So let's have Bono at the table. But mostly because if you haven't, I encourage people to read his book. The work that he did on behalf of Africa during the George W. Bush administration is a really great example of ways that people with wildly different backgrounds and views of the world can work together to save millions of lives. All right, excellent.

49:23I think you're a role model, Governor Cox, for what we need more of in politics. I think we need people who are willing to disagree without disrespect. I think we need people who are reasonable in the process they use to form their views, even if we don't always align on what those views are.

49:43Spencer Cox: Well, Adam, you're very kind. Thank you. I appreciate having the conversation. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. I'm such a fan. Even when I disagree with you, you challenge me. And I think that's really healthy. It helps to strengthen my own positions. When people challenge me, I think we can't understand our own positions until we truly understand the other side. And I'm always grateful for people who are willing to push back and help me think again about the types of things that I care deeply about. I care deeply about this country. I love this place. I really do. We're so lucky to live here.

50:15Spencer Cox: Despite the problems we might have, it's not as bad as it has been before, and it can be better. I still believe in us, this country, the things, this grand experiment we embarked on 250 years ago. And right now, Americans everywhere I go are changing course. They're logging off of social media. They're healing a relationship with a family member or a friend. They're supporting candidates that are working to bring us together. And just like we've always done, America is going to come out on top. I hope you're right. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, Adam.

50:54Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show is produced by TED with Cosmic Standard. Our producer is Jessica Glazer. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our engineer is Asia Pilar Simpson. Our technical director is Jacob Winnick. And our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Roxanne Hilash, Banban Chang, Julia Dickerson, Tansika Sung Manivang, and Whitney Pennington Rogers. Original music by Hans Dale Su and Alison Leighton Brown.

51:24I do have some strong hypotheses about how to fix Congress, and it begins with term limits and age limits. I would support both of those. Easy, easy. We just need a few hundred members of Congress to be willing to vote themselves out of power. That's exactly right, which is really hard to do. This episode of TED Talks Daily is brought to you by Apollo.io. We often talk about how great ideas can change the way we work.

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