Katie McKellar, Utah News Dispatch

For the second time in less than a month, Utah lawmakers on Wednesday yanked from a legislative committee agenda a discussion of the Utah Republican Party’s chaotic presidential preference poll on Super Tuesday in March.

After previously being rescheduled from the Government Operations Interim Committee’s Aug. 21 meeting amid pressure from Republican party leadership, the committee’s Senate chair Sen. Dan Thatcher, R-West Valley City, put the discussion at the top of Wednesday’s agenda with a full slate of presenters who showed up to the meeting expecting to discuss issues that left many Utah Republican Party members feeling frustrated and, in some cases, disenfranchised due to long lines, technical difficulties and problematic access for people with disabilities.

But when it came time to begin the presentation, the rest of the Government Operations Interim Committee (made up of a supermajority of Republicans) voted to strip it from the agenda to the anger of Thatcher, a Republican who has not shied away from breaking with his fellow GOP lawmakers on certain issues.

Caucus ‘fiasco’: Registration issues frustrate Utah GOP voters

“I am genuinely disappointed. Truly, deeply disappointed that we have people who came here today who just want to be heard,” Thatcher said, after several other Republican lawmakers argued they didn’t believe it was an “appropriate” discussion to be having at a legislative committee.

Thatcher said he knows it can sometimes be “embarrassing or uncomfortable for people” to answer questions around whether or not the presidential preference poll functioned appropriately or whether it’s the “best way moving forward.” However, he argued, “if we’re afraid to even ask questions, I think it makes us look a whole lot worse than whatever those answers might be.”

Thatcher argued it’s worth discussing “what happened with the presidential primary election, whether or not there are people who wanted to be able to vote for the president that didn’t get an opportunity to do so, whether or not we’re in compliance with Utah’s constitution about being able to vote, and whether or not there is more benefit to doing it (in a caucus) that outweighs whether or not we are violating civil liberties.”

Nearly 86,000 votes were cast in the Utah GOP’s presidential preference poll — a turnout of 9.6% of the state’s 890,637 active registered Republican voters ahead of Super Tuesday. The results weren’t surprising. Former President Donald Trump beat his only remaining opponent at the time, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, 56% to 43% and won all of the state’s 40 delegates.

In reaction to the pulled agenda item, the Utah Democratic Party issued a news release in which it said its vice chair Oscar Mata had accepted an invitation to present on the issue and “defend the right of every Utahn to cast their vote in a presidential primary.”

“If Republicans hadn’t voted to continue their caucus night cover-up,” Mata said in a prepared statement, “I would have told them that every Utahn deserves to have their vote counted by professional election officials rather than partisan leaders. The decision by Republican politicians to protect themselves from facing accountability for disenfranchising their own party members is unacceptable, and frankly, reeks of corruption.”

It’s worth noting that Thatcher, a Republican, was the only one to vote against removing the agenda item, and Democrat Sen. Jen Plumb, D-Salt Lake City, voted in favor along with other Republicans.

What are lawmakers refusing to discuss?

Utah law allows political parties to choose how they select their nominee for president. This year, the Utah Democratic Party opted to participate in the state’s presidential primary on March 5, while the Utah Republican Party decided to instead hold an in-person preference poll in conjunction with its statewide caucus meetings.

Wednesday’s committee was scheduled to hear a presentation from Daryl Acumen, a data scientist from Draper and longtime member of the Utah Republican Party who has held several leadership roles, including vice chairman of the Utah County Republican Party. He’s also been an outspoken critic of the party’s love of the caucus-convention system and its unsuccessful efforts to undo SB54, a 2014 law that set a dual route to the primary ballot, allowing candidates to bypass the convention system by gathering signatures to qualify.

After Super Tuesday, Acumen sent a text message to more than 410,356 Utah Republicans asking them to rate their experience with the party’s presidential preference poll on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being very satisfied and 1 being very unsatisfied.

According to his presentation, more than 10,400 responded, of which 6,001 rated “1” and about 260 rated even lower, “minus one” or “zero.” In all, Acumen’s presentation said nearly 73% of respondents were “unhappy” with their experience of the party’s presidential preference poll. His presentation also included hundreds of quotes from respondents expressing frustrations.

One commenter, according to Acumen’s presentation, called the experience “more excruciating than enthralling, more appalling than appealing — so much so in fact — that my wife is questioning whether she wants to ever go back to our neighborhood caucus again!”

The committee was also slated to consider a report from the Disability Law Center, which found “numerous obstacles hindering the voting process” at the Utah GOP’s caucus meetings, including limited parking and lack of greeters or signage leading to voter confusion. It also found none of the party’s caucus meetings “satisfied a simple list of standards for physical access and basic accommodations.”

“With facilities and accommodations failing to meet their needs, voters faced unsafe conditions, were denied equal access to information, or were unable to fully participate in selecting party leaders and/or cast their presidential preference vote,” the Disability Law Center report says. “These obstacles highlighted systemic issues within the caucus voting infrastructure, underscoring the imperative for reforms to ensure equitable access to the democratic process for all citizens.”

However, the Government Operations Interim Committee stripped those items from its agenda after Rep. Stephanie Gricius, R-Eagle Mountain, said she read the materials included for Wednesday’s discussion and “it’s become clear to me this is not the appropriate place and the appropriate way to have this conversation.”

“We have materials that impugn members of the public, which I find completely inappropriate,” she said. “And using this committee to air personal grievances is both inappropriate and a waste of time for both this committee as well as the general public.”

Gricius didn’t elaborate on how the meeting materials “impugn members of the public.” But other lawmakers, including Rep. Kay Christofferson, R-Lehi, argued in favor of striking them from the agenda because the materials were “not very objective.” Christofferson pointed to a line in Acumen’s presentation that read, “the purpose of ‘the caucus system’ is to minimize participation and to block qualified candidates from the ballot.”

“That’s telling me there’s an extreme bias,” Christofferson said. “I just don’t feel like the meeting materials suit our needs.”

Thatcher offered to remove Acumen’s presentation to quell committee members’ concerns so they could proceed with discussing the presidential primary, but Gricius argued the entire agenda item needed to be removed because the discussion had already been “tainted.”

“This is an issue I would like to see heard, but we need to come at it from a clean slate,” she said.

Unaddressed frustrations

After the committee’s vote to rip up the agenda item, attendees expecting to weigh in got up and left.

Nate Crippes, public affairs supervising attorney with the Disability Law Center, in an interview with Utah News Dispatch expressed some frustration, noting his organization is nonpartisan and has long been going to polling places to survey for accessibility and offer ways to improve voter access.

“At this point we just wanted to share the report and get those concerns out there so we could improve the system,” he said. “If this is something the state is going to continue to do, our hope is to make it better.”

Acumen was audibly incensed during a phone call with Utah News Dispatch after the committee meeting. He called Utah Republican Party Chairman Rob Axson a “coward” and criticized Utah lawmakers for avoiding the discussion and essentially ignoring concerns from thousands of Utah Republicans who were left frustrated by the Utah GOP’s presidential preference poll.

“Those people — those people — got shafted today,” Acumen said. “That makes me sick.”

Axson, who said he and other Utah Republican Party officials had encouraged lawmakers both in August and this week to pull the discussion off their agenda, applauded the move, saying lawmakers recognized “this was not the appropriate venue or jurisdiction for this conversation.”

“I commend them for recognizing the agenda item for being prejudicial and biased as well as not being the appropriate venue for the conversation,” Axson told Utah News Dispatch.

Axson said the party’s decision on whether to hold a presidential primary or to hold a presidential preference poll is a “private process.”

“We are private organizations, and we both … proceeded with our nomination process the way that we saw fit in accordance with what our party rules and what state law avails us,” Axson said.

That’s where he and Acumen fundamentally disagree. Acumen said the Utah Republican Party is still “operating under the delusion that they are a private organization.” He pointed to a 1944 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that held states must make voting in primary elections equally accessible to voters of all racial backgounds, even if they don’t manage the election process themselves.

“No, you’re not a private organization. You’re a semi-public organization when you take part in the election of public officials. You are an agency of the state. And the state has not only a right, but a responsibility to make sure your elections are free and fair,” Acumen said.

Acumen said even under the “best case scenario,” there’s no way the Utah GOP could accommodate all Utah Republican voters in its caucus system because there simply aren’t enough classrooms to accommodate all of them. Caucus meetings are typically held in the evenings in public school buildings.

The divides and animosity between Axson and Acumen were on full display in Utah News Dispatch’s conversations with each of them.

When asked how the discussion would be “prejudicial and biased,” Axson referred to Acumen’s report and said it came from a “known antagonist of the Republican Party.”

At that, Acumen fumed, saying he’s been a staunch member of the Republican Party since 1989. He said he’s not an “antagonist.” Rather, he said, “I think the caucus system is communism” that disenfranchises voters. He criticized Utah Republican Party leaders for their love of the caucus system, which he called a “cultural artifact of Utah” that is supported by people who are “more loyal to the caucus system than they are to conservative principles.”

“Look, the party today is obsessed with the caucus. It is a cult,” he said. “It is not conservatism.”

Will the Utah Republican Party listen, look for ways to improve?

What about the issue at hand and the opportunity that was missed on Wednesday — to discuss solutions to problems that frustrated Republican voters during Super Tuesday?

Pressed on this, Axson acknowledged that 13 of the Utah GOP’s caucus locations saw “substantial problems,” and there were “a number of other locations that had room for improvement.”

“We’ve been willing to listen to those recommendations and ideas from inside and outside of the party,” he said. “We have to be willing to learn from what goes well as much as we learn from what doesn’t go well, and we’ve done that and we will continue to do well.”

However, Axson said Acumen “continues to gin up the same argument, the same fire, and to pour gasoline on it.” He said he has a hard time believing Utah Republicans “are just as upset today as they were on March 5, especially considering by Super Tuesday the election of Donald Trump to receive the nomination was already decided.”

Axson said that’s one reason why there was lower turnout — the race was practically already decided.

“But to somebody who was upset then for whatever reason, we welcomed their feedback and I would welcome it still today,” Axson said. “But if they’re still as upset right now about that very issue, there’s something else afoot.”

Asked, however, about whether he’ll listen to the Disability Law Center’s findings and recommendations, Axson said their report focused on “public buildings.”

“I would encourage them to reach out to the appropriate avenue of having those addressed, which would be local school districts and the state school board,” he said. “If there are deficiencies in ADA compliance with the physicality of buildings, that’s not the Republican Party who was merely a private organization renting time in the facilities.”

As far as ADA accommodation, Axson said the Utah GOP is “fully committed to being ADA compliant, and that includes providing accommodations and assistance to anybody that has specific needs that contact us, and we did that in the lead up to caucus and the lead up to convention.”

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com. Follow Utah News Dispatch on Facebook and X.

In 2023, 216 people died while homeless in Utah.

Out of 21,816 deaths reported in the state that year, people experiencing homelessness in Utah had 10 times the rate of death compared to the rest of Utah’s population. And, on average, Utah’s homeless died 16 years younger.

Those are some of the top takeaways from a new report released by the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. The homeless mortality report is the first of its kind — after the state, in late 2022, only began collecting through vital statistics records whether a Utahn was experiencing homelessness at their time of death.

Previously, heartfelt candlelight vigils held in Utah’s dark winter months would make an effort to track and grieve deaths in the state’s homeless community. Those vigils grieved 74 in 2023, 159 in 2022, and 117 in 2021.

While those vigils helped highlight the issue and create a space for community grieving, there’s now a more scientific effort underway to track deaths of Utah’s most vulnerable. And the first year of available data show there were many more falling through the cracks.

“We hope this report honors those who died while experiencing homelessness by raising awareness of their tragic loss of life,” authors of the report wrote. “We also intend that this report will provide data to inform policy and service provider programs on how to improve the health of those experiencing homelessness.”

The report was written by state epidemiologist Leisha Nolen, housing insecure populations epidemiologist Tyler Riedesel, and deputy state epidemiologist Amanda Smith. Their aim was to better understand leading causes of death for Utah’s homeless populations.

The report found:

The mean age of death among people experiencing homelessness was 56 years of age, compared to 72 years of age in the general population.

People experiencing homelessness age 35 to 44 had a higher rate of death than those in the general population who were older than age 65.

Accidents, suicides and homicides made up a much larger percentage of deaths in people experiencing homelessness (50%) compared to the general population (11%).

Chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and pulmonary disease were a leading cause of death for both people experiencing homelessness and those in the general population. However, chronic disease accounted for 33% of deaths among people experiencing homelessness compared to 59% of deaths in the general population.

People experiencing homelessness are disproportionately affected by the country’s substance use epidemic. Substance use related deaths, which were mostly accidental, accounted for 35% of deaths in people experiencing homelessness compared to only 5% of deaths in the general population.

The report also listed a variety of policy suggestions to help prevent deaths among Utah’s homeless, including:

Support developing more “low barrier” housing options for those experiencing homelessness, or housing that’s easily accessible. That housing, the report notes, “should include medical respite care and housing that includes wraparound services and case management.”

Make sure all Utahns have access to medical treatment by supporting “low barrier primary healthcare and substance use treatment service options that are skilled in serving not only the general population but those who are experiencing homelessness.”

Create an advisory group of “healthcare funders and providers, managed care plans, and stakeholders to evaluate and fund best practices in delivering healthcare to people experiencing homelessness in urban, suburban, and rural communities.”

“Improve collaboration between organizations” focused on harm reduction and homeless services “to better improve access to naloxone, fentanyl and xylazine test strips, syringe services, and other life-saving harm reduction tools.”

“Establish a homelessness mortality review process to better understand the circumstances that contribute to these deaths and identify strategies to prevent further fatalities.”

Most of these deaths are “preventable,” Riedesel told Utah News Dispatch on Friday.

The report’s findings weren’t necessarily surprising, he said, but the 16-year age disparity for the average age of death for someone experiencing homelessness compared to the rest of the state’s population was eyebrow raising.

“It was more extreme than I thought we would find,” he said.

In September 2022, the Utah Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Vital Records and Statistics added a question to vital statistics records that funeral homes and death investigators at medical examiners offices fill out for every death they record. That checkbox simply asks whether someone was experiencing homelessness at the time of their death.

Now, after the first full year of that information being collected, Riedesel said the data will help shed more light on the challenges and dangers people experiencing homelessness face – as well as help inform policy decisions.

“This is game changing for understanding health in people experiencing homelessness,” he said.

Because health care systems don’t track health data on people experiencing homelessness in a standardized way, evaluating their health has been “hard,” he said.

“But this is our first step,” he said. “Mortality is a good baseline for people’s health, and we’ll go from there.”

In the future, Riedesel said state officials plan to suggest a standardized definition of homelessness that the broader healthcare system can use “so we can start to get more robust data, not only around mortality but around health.”

Riedesel and Nolen were slated to present the report’s findings to the Utah Homeless Services Board on Thursday, but the board fell behind schedule and delayed the briefing until its next meeting in September.

2024-Utah-Homeless-Mortality-Report (1)

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com. Follow Utah News Dispatch on Facebook and X.

Hollywood star Matthew McConaughey, who has made past headlines for toying with the idea of running for public office, whether it be for Texas’ governor or a presidential bid, again wouldn’t give a definitive answer Friday — but he left the door open.

“Yes, I’ve thought about running (for public office),” the actor said in response to the question posed by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, at the National Governors Association Summer Meeting in Salt Lake City. “I’m on a learning tour and have been, probably, for the last six years.”

McConaughey said he’s been mulling the move as he asks himself if he has “what it takes. Do I have the instincts and the intellect that it would be a good fit for me, and I would be a good fit for it?”

“I’m still on that learning tour,” he added, while joking he also “learned a lot” Thursday night from Murphy; the governor prefaced his question to McConaughey by telling the actor he was told he “enjoyed your tequila last night” during a reception with the actor, “but I don’t recall any of it,” to laughs from the crowd.

McConaughey’s on-stage discussion with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis was a headliner event at the NGA’s summer meeting in Salt Lake City, most of which was focused on capping off Cox’s “Disagree Better” campaign before Cox passed the association’s chairmanship to Polis.

McConaughey’s attendance perhaps paled to just one other attendee: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Come to Ukraine, ‘see our struggle,’ Zelenskyy tells governors on Utah stage

Why did McConaughey decide to spend his time talking on a stage with Cox and Polis? The movie star said he believes in the goal of the Disagree Better campaign — a national effort to discourage hyperpartisanship, polarization and political tribalism across the U.S.

It’s not his first step into the debate. In 2021, the actor said the government needs to be “aggressively centric” to overcome divisive politics, The Hill reported. Amid yearslong speculation that McConaughey would run for Texas governor, his political affiliation has remained a mystery.

His advice for American politicians to be part of the solution? Focus on your job, and don’t fight with each other for attention’s sake.

“I’m in the entertainment business. Our leaders don’t need to be in the entertainment business,” he said, adding U.S. political leaders need to be “adults in the room,” and not act like they’re on “an episode of ‘Real Housewives.’”

McConaughey urged elected leaders to “negotiate the right way with decency,” and make an effort to show they’re listening to opposing viewpoints.

Another piece of advice from the “Interstellar” and “Mud” star? Learn how to market hope rather than fear.

“Listen, fear is easier to sell than hope,” he said. “So, how do we sell belief, which I think is what we really need more of in our country — belief. Whether it’s literal belief … in God, or belief in ourselves, our neighbors, and what America can be.”

In response to McConaughey’s comments, Cox said he’s “trying to imagine a presidential candidate like this talking about belief in something bigger than ourselves, in each other … laying out a positive vision in our country,” but it’s something that’s rare in today’s political landscape.

McConaughey also said celebrities — who hold a tremendous amount of influence in American culture — also need to play a part in turning the nation’s political climate around. Most celebrities publicly lean left, he said, and it’s easy to take a “default” position to “invalidate the other side” whenever there’s an opportunity.

“No, we can’t lead with, ‘Well if you don’t believe in abortion, then you’re anti-women,’” he said, among other examples.

McConaughey said when so many celebrities lean hard to they left and half of the country disagrees with that viewpoint, they have a responsibility to allow a good-faith conversation, “and not invalidate a moderate or conservative view right out the gate, which we’re guilty of doing to an extent.”

Cox and Polis applauded McConaughey for engaging in the “Disagree Better” campaign. Cox, in his opening speech, said the actor’s visit came after he and Polis had a “crazy idea about eight months ago,” and they held a Zoom call with McConaughey. He expected a short, pleasant call before the actor “wished us luck as we went on our journey.”

“But it was the complete opposite,” Cox said, “As we engaged with Mr. McConaughey on that Zoom call, he kept asking questions. There was a genuine curiosity about him and a sincerity about this work.”

When McConaughey agreed to participate in the NGA’s summer meeting Thursday and Friday, Cox said he also expected him to spend enough time for Friday’s discussion and then go on his way. But instead, he said the actor has “been to everything with us,” during the week’s schedule of events.

Cox joked his staff would have “electroshocked” him if he introduced McConaughey with the three words the actor is most famous for — so he didn’t. But the crowd got to hear it straight from McConaughey’s mouth when he talked about his favorite director, Rick Linklater, who gave him his breakthrough role in “Dazed And Confused.”

“Alright, alright, alright,” he said, to cheers.

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com. Follow Utah News Dispatch on Facebook and X.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox opened his TED talk, which he delivered from Canada on Wednesday, with a quote from former President Ronald Reagan: “Freedom is a fragile thing, and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction.”

Cox said he, like many others, has used that quote many times — but he confessed he didn’t actually believe it. That is, until the “first cracks in my confidence came” when he was Utah’s lieutenant governor, and that was when he showed up to what was supposed to be a routine meeting to certify the votes of electors for a presidential election.

“I was stunned to see dozens of angry protesters screaming that the election had been stolen and demanding that we violate state law and change the votes of the electors,” Cox told the audience members at the Vancouver Convention Centre, where his talk was live streamed on TED’s website as part of a series of talks titled “Bridge-Builders.”

“Now, I know what you’re all thinking, and you’re probably wrong,” Cox said. “This was not 2020. This was 2016. And the protesters were Hillary Clinton supporters.”

However, Cox said election protests “got far worse, somehow, four years later,” referring to the 2020 presidential contest between then-President Donald Trump and Joe Biden. It was then, “after a summer of destructive protests by the extreme left and extreme right that was already undermining the validity of an election that hadn’t even happened yet,” that Cox said he decided to try something new.

Cox, at the time the Republican candidate for governor, said he called up his Democratic opponent Chris Peterson and pitched a “crazy idea: what if we filmed a campaign ad together?”

“I could almost hear the confused look forming on his face,” Cox said, to laughs. “To his credit, he agreed, and one week later we were in a studio together.”

The result was an ad in which Peterson and Cox stood side by side to give Utahns a message they called “critical to the health of our nation.” They urged voters, regardless of political affiliation or the outcome of the election, to support the results of the presidential election. Cox said in the ad they’re “both committed to American civility and a peaceful transition of power.”

Some dismissed the joint ad as one that would only appear in a state where one candidate was all but sure to win (Utah is bright red and hasn’t seen a Democratic governor since the ’80s). However, the ad went viral and made national headlines.

Cox recalled thinking at the time that the ad and its response perhaps showed “there really is an exhausted majority” fed up with polarized rhetoric and “maybe this is the message they want to hear.”

“The popularity of the ad validated my hope that most people really do want their political leaders to uphold the values that we teach our kids,” Cox said. “That we can disagree without hate and contempt. That we can find ways to treat each other with respect, even when we disagree.”

Cox said there seemed to be “a hunger for architects instead of arsonists.”

That hunch, he said, was confirmed when a professor submitted a version of the ad to the Stanford Polarization and Social Change Lab as part of a depolarization experiment. Out of 25 interventions tested on 31,000 people, the experiment found the Cox-Peterson ad was one of the most effective, ranking No. 2 for reducing support of partisan violence and No. 4 for reducing support for undemocratic practices, according to the experiment’s results.

“It turns out, there really are things that we can do to alter the trajectory of the United States,” Cox said.

With a repeat contest between Trump and Biden looming this November, Cox acknowledged it’s “easy to feel a little hopeless as Americans once again barrel towards an election with unsatisfying candidates and campaigns.”

“But there is good news,” he said. “Over the past six months, 20 governors from all across the country have filmed similar ads, most of them with a public servant from the opposing party.”

Cox, who is currently serving as the National Governors Association’s chairman, was alluding to videos created by his “Disagree Better” campaign, aimed at reducing hyperpartisanship and polarization across the U.S.

Cox said there are “very practical things that every one of us can do every day to help heal the divides in our nations and our neighborhoods.”

Cox said Americans start by “turning off and tuning out some of those conflict entrepreneurs,” pointing first to cable news. He said studies have shown more time spent “doom scrolling” is “really bad for our mental health.” He also said engaging in volunteering or service projects can help build communities and improve outlook on life.

“You see, more news all the time isn’t making us smarter, it’s just stressing us out,” Cox said. “Second, we can spend more time, preferably offline, with real people who are different from us. … You see, it’s just harder to hate up close.”

Cox said asking someone with opposing views “‘tell me more about why you feel that way’ is a magical request.”

“If we look beyond our political tribes, we can actually find shared identities and friendships that unite instead of divide,” Cox said.

Cox acknowledged that it’s “almost laughable to talk about words like humility in political discourse, but I truly believe that it is the only way for us to remember how to disagree without hate and contempt.”

Cox closed with a call to action — for everyday people to “once again secure the freedoms endowed to all of us from on high.”

“We cannot wait for politicians or the media to do it,” he said. “It will take real work, hard work, by each of us.”

The solemn talk took a humorous turn when Cox briefly misspoke, drawing laughs from the crowd. “We must remember how to hate — how to disagree without hate,” Cox said, quickly correcting himself with a laugh of his own. “We must remember how to disagree without hate. We must rise up and meet that radical call to love our enemies, even — especially our political opponents.”

Cox concluded with what he said is not “an easy answer. But it is a simple one.”

“If we really want to change the world, we have to start by changing our own hearts.”

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com. Follow Utah News Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.