We Utahns are blessed with leaders who are wise and have the prescience to foresee problems and navigate prudently around them. For example, just take Gov. Cox’s gushing letter to Trump in 2024 that reads like a torrid romance novel (seriously, look it up). Among other flattering (some might say boot-licking) words of praise, Cox insisted that “only you [Trump]” can unite the country.
I have a few questions for Cox as a follow up on his love letter. Does Trump’s posting of a racist video portraying our only Black president and his wife as monkeys unite the country? Does the execution in the street of a restrained bystander by Trump’s masked thugs unite the country? Do Trump’s threats of withholding my tax dollars to congressionally-approved projects in Democratic-controlled states unite the country? Does Trump’s treatment of women — from “grab ’em by the p****” to “quiet piggy” — unite the country?
All of this could have easily been foreseen by a kindergartner, so one has to assume Cox, as one of our “wise” leaders, knew exactly what he was endorsing — the unification of white, misogynistic, male, racist, Republican Americans.
Which would be one thing if Cox were consistent in his positions, but instead the ever-waffling governor pulls tricks like he did after the Charlie Kirk shooting. There, Cox scrambled to get on national media to plead to turn down the temperature, which not coincidentally earned him national praise.
Then Cox gets a call from Trump and scrambles to get attention only hours later, saying — without a shred of evidence — that the shooter had been indoctrinated by some imagined left wing cabal.
The shifting sands of Cox’s moral foundation make it hard to discern his true values, but the one consistent feature of Cox’s ideology is if it appears that will get him votes or confirm his obeisance to Trump, he’s all in.
The sad thing is that, despite this hypocrisy, Cox is still better than Utah’s other politicians — and that doesn’t bode well for the problems we are faced with navigating.
Lew Miller, Salt Lake City
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