As a Reform Jew from the East Coast, I never dreamed I’d be writing these words: I’m finding solace in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
It’s not the church’s theology, to be sure, nor its sometimes dark history. But the Mormon Church has been turning out one conservative elected official after another who has demanded we pull back from the political abyss.
First there was Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Arizona), who said that “we must never adjust to the present coarseness of our national dialogue” and that “we must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country — the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth or decency.”
Then there was Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who warned that “freedom itself is dependent on the strength and vitality of our national character” and that “there are some today who would tear at our unity, who would replace love with hate, who deride our foundation of virtue, or who debase the values upon which the blessings of heaven depend.”
And now Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah, has been beating the drum for decency, civility and compromise more than any other prominent elected Republican in the country, and perhaps more than any official in either party.
On Tuesday, the same day authorities in Utah charged a man with threatening to shoot Cox and other state officials in the head, Cox sat before an audience at Washington National Cathedral and pleaded for an end to the madness. “That red light is blinking,” he said. “We’re passing all the checkpoints towards ultimately failed states and things like civil war. I hate maybe using that phrase, but if we don’t make a course correction, that’s where this leads.”
Flake’s and Romney’s decisions to include President Donald Trump in their criticism ended their political careers, and Cox endured an ugly primary challenge last year from a Trump-pardoned opponent who refused to acknowledge Cox’s victory.
Yet they spoke out anyway. All three men have credited their faith. “It’s core to who I am,” Cox told me before he spoke at the cathedral. “The leader of my church has been advocating for us to be peacemakers. I think it is the issue of our time and we desperately need it. … Bridge-building is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and it’s not natural. It takes people of strong faith and strong courage.”
Cox made his “Disagree Better” initiative the focus of his chairmanship of the National Governors Association in 2023 and 2024. Since then, he has continued hosting joint appearances with Democratic leaders from across the country to model civil discourse. For his latest, at the cathedral, he sat with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Jewish Democrat who was the victim of an arson attack earlier this year.
He admitted that he sometimes feels as though he is shouting into the void. Even as Cox and Shapiro appealed to decency at the cathedral, Trump was doling out insults at a rally in Pennsylvania: “Morons.” “Crooked.” “Sleepy son of a b—-.” He mocked Native Americans, demeaned “hellhole” countries and called Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) the one “with the little turban” who should be thrown “the hell out.”
Cox offered no defense of Trump before the cathedral crowd. “I’m not going to try to play down his divisive rhetoric at all,” he said. Speaking with me, he allowed that he has had a “rough” year (his primary battle was followed by the killing of Charlie Kirk in Utah) and became “a little cynical” at times.
Secular Americans often are suspicious of those in politics who wear their religion on their sleeves. But the Latter-day Saints preach about compromise, civility, pluralism and reverence for constitutional boundaries. Consider a sampling of the guidance over the past four years from the church’s president and prophet, Russell Nelson, and his successor, Dallin Oaks:
“Too many pundits, politicians, entertainers and other influencers throw insults constantly. … As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are to be examples of how to interact with others — especially when we have differences of opinion.”
“We are to be governed by law and not by individuals, and our loyalty is to the Constitution and its principles and processes, not to any office holder. … These principles block the autocratic ambitions that have corrupted democracy in some countries.”
“Vote for those who have demonstrated integrity, compassion, and service to others, regardless of party affiliation. Merely voting a straight ticket or voting based on ‘tradition’ without careful study of candidates and their positions on important issues is a threat to democracy.”
And the one Cox cited: “Contention is a choice. Peacemaking is a choice. You have your agency to choose contention or reconciliation. I urge you to choose to be a peacemaker, now and always. Now is the time to cease insisting that it is your way or no way.”
Such words appear to soften the flock’s partisanship. Mormon voters’ political views are essentially identical to those of White evangelical Protestants. But while Trump won 79 percent of White evangelicals in 2024, he earned 65 percent support among Latter-day Saints — a gap also seen in 2016 and 2020.
Could it be that this uniquely American religion has come up with a solution to America’s political crisis? The evidence suggests it has.
There is nothing inevitable about political violence in the United States. We are in effect choosing violence — or, more accurately, our leaders are, by failing to use their considerable influence to curtail it.
A voluminous body of research shows that the electorate takes its cues on these matters from partisan elites, particularly elected officials. Despite MAGA skepticism of elites, Republicans are just as likely as Democrats to take their cues from elites in their party.
Cox, in his first gubernatorial campaign in 2020, decided to experiment with an alternative type of cuing. In GOP-dominated Utah, his election was a sure thing, but he invited his Democratic opponent, Chris Peterson, to film a pair of ads with him.
“Our common values transcend our political differences, and the strength of our nation rests on our ability to see that,” Peterson said in one ad.
“We are both equally dedicated to the American values of democracy, liberty and justice for all people,” Cox replied.
“We will fully support the results of the upcoming presidential election regardless of the outcome,” Peterson added.
“Although we sit on different sides of the aisle, we are both committed to American civility and a peaceful transition of power,” Cox agreed.
They closed by jointly saying, “We approve this message.”
In a second ad, the pair agreed to “debate issues without degrading each other’s character” and to “disagree without hating each other.”
The ads, which the Cox campaign paid to run, were a viral hit, and studies have found that such messages can have a meaningful influence on popular attitudes.
Cornell political scientist Jan Voelkel, who led a 2024 study with some 80 co-authors, tested 25 potential techniques for reversing partisan animosity, antidemocratic attitudes and the condoning of political violence. The Cox experiment “stood out to us because it was one of only three that had a significant effect on all three,” Voelkel told me.
The effects were small (a couple of percentage points for each) but clear. “One time seeing this clip is not going to fix democracy,” Voelkel said. “But I think initiatives such as the one by Governor Cox, if they were applied at scale … could have a big impact on what the general public would think and the extent to which they would embrace polarization.”
A follow-up working paper, this one led by the University of Toronto’s Chagai Weiss, exposed 8,700 people to the Cox PSA messages through their online streaming services and found that those who saw the 30-second ads were about 6 percent more likely to engage in “bipartisan behaviors” than those who didn’t. Again, that’s a modest change, but Weiss speculates that more intensive exposure to such messages “would ultimately have larger effects.”
Politician-led efforts aren’t the only solution. Social media algorithms have been shown to shape antidemocratic attitudes and partisan animosity. Those in traditional media have a role in partisan cueing, too. (I’m trying to do my part.)
Still, the research shows that elected leaders have agency. They can shape the political climate rather than just reflect their most extreme constituents.
That is certainly Cox’s view. Marianne Viray, tapped by Cox to run Disagree Better, says her job is “putting out more of those visual cues that show productive conflict and disagreement, that normalize cross-partisan engagement.”
There’s not likely to be much help on that score from the current administration. But where are our members of Congress? Where are our past presidents? Lives are at risk — and they can do something about it.
The instincts Cox is demonstrating on the national stage have deep roots in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The structure of the church forces its leaders to reach consensus: The president, his two counselors and the 12 apostles who run the church must act unanimously to make any major change to doctrine. Membership in local congregations, or wards, is assigned by geography, which means parishioners don’t get to choose a church with like-minded people. And though the Latter-day Saints tend to be racially and ideologically homogenous, their missionary work puts them in contact with all walks of life.
“We develop these reflexes through our system of governance to understand the need for, dare I say, compromise and how you effectively persuade people,” says Paul Edwards, a former Utah political operative who now directs the Wheatley Institute, a research arm of Brigham Young University. “The sociology of our lived experiences as Latter-day Saints is one of frequent accommodation, negotiation and engagement with people we didn’t pick as our best buddies.”
To be sure, the political scene in Utah is no heaven on earth. Some of the bitterness and dehumanization of the Trump era has seeped into the state’s politics. Notably, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is one of the most caustic partisan warriors.
But in general, Mormon churches have kept politics out to a far greater extent than many White evangelical churches have. This is both a matter of structure and theology. The decentralized governing structure of evangelical churches, in which paid clergy serve at the pleasure of their parishioners, tends to empower the loudest voices in the pews. But Latter-day Saints churches are run by volunteer, lay clergy whose livelihoods don’t depend on placating the most extreme members of their church.
Ideologically, the Latter-day Saints, persecuted for much of their history as a minority religion, embrace pluralism and regard as divinely inspired the Constitution. They eschew Christian nationalism and the “Dominionist” view that Christians should dominate American society.
“The Latter-day Saint attitude, like the Jewish attitude, is that we may be blessed with safety and influence here in America, but we can never feel entitled to them,” the Brookings Institution’s Jonathan Rausch writes in his book published this year, “Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain With Democracy.” “We cannot ‘lose our country’ because it is not ours to lose; rather, we are here to share it.”
McKay Coppins, a Mormon writer for the Atlantic, notes that many in the faith tell the apocryphal story of a prophecy by Joseph Smith, the church’s founder, in which a time comes when the Constitution is “hanging by a thread” but the country is saved by a “white horse” from the church. “It appeals to the Mormons’ faith in America,” Coppins writes, “and to their conviction that they have a role to play in its preservation.”
Even in the sanctity of the cathedral this week, the routine rage of our politics forced its way in. Three times, hecklers protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza interrupted the civility discussion. And the conversation inevitably turned to Trump, who, Shapiro said, has failed to condemn political violence committed by those on his side. “We have a president who fails that test on a daily basis,” the Democrat said.
Cox didn’t argue the point. He observed that the sort of discussion he and Shapiro were having wasn’t Trump’s “thing.” Cox didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020 but endorsed him last year after the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt, in hopes that Trump would use that moment to “lower the temperature and unify our country.”
That didn’t happen. And increasingly, Cox said, “it’s harder for us to come onstage like this” because of the ever-present threat of political violence. “It’s always in the back of the mind.”
Yet he keeps on going. “This country, if we’re going to make it another 250 years — if we’re going to make it another 2.5 years — we desperately need you tonight to lay down your swords and treat each other with dignity and respect,” he said.
“Amen,” said Shapiro. As the event closed, the two joined hands.
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