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This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.<\/p>\n
Updated at 7:23 p.m. ET on September 12, 2025<\/em><\/p>\n One small relief in an awful week is that Utah Governor Spencer Cox was the man leading the official response to Charlie Kirk\u2019s assassination. In any other state, local politicians might have either become targets for President Donald Trump or leapt to inflame the situation. But the Beehive State\u2019s governor is perhaps the most consistent voice of calm and conciliation in the GOP.<\/p>\n Cox\u2019s impulse to appeal to what Abraham Lincoln called the \u201cbetter angels of our nature\u201d was on display this morning in a press conference, where, flanked by FBI Director Kash Patel and local leaders, he announced the arrest of Tyler Robinson, the suspect in Kirk\u2019s killing, on Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is certainly about the tragic death, political assassination of Charlie Kirk. But it is also much bigger than an attack on an individual,\u201d Cox said. \u201cIt is an attack on all of us. It is an attack on the American experiment. It is an attack on our ideals. This cuts to the very foundation of who we are, of who we have been, and who we could be in better times.\u201d<\/p>\n This kind of language was once common among mainstream politicians responding to a tragedy; now Cox is a notable and praiseworthy outlier in his own party. Trump\u2019s response has been mercurial. At times, the president has seemed to call for a calm, measured reaction to the shooting. \u201cHe was an advocate of nonviolence,\u201d Trump said of Kirk on Thursday. \u201cThat\u2019s the way I\u2019d like to see people respond.\u201d In the next breath, however, he cast blame and demanded forceful reprisal. During Cox\u2019s remarks this morning, the governor seemed almost to be trying to speak to Trump\u2014or at least to those who might be swayed by his rhetoric.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have radical-left lunatics out there, and we just have to beat the hell out of them,\u201d Trump said yesterday.<\/p>\n \u201cTo my young friends out there, you are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage,\u201d Cox lamented. \u201cIt feels like rage is the only option.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence,\u201d Trump said in a brief speech Wednesday night, \u201cincluding the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law-enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.\u201d<\/p>\n And here\u2019s Cox today: \u201cThere is one person responsible for what happened here, and that person is now in custody and will be charged soon and will be held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n This morning on Fox & Friends, Trump told the hosts, \u201cI\u2019ll tell you something that\u2019s gonna get me in trouble, but I couldn\u2019t care less. The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don\u2019t want to see crime.\u201d He added: \u201cThe radicals on the left are the problem. And they\u2019re vicious, and they\u2019re horrible, and they\u2019re politically savvy.\u201d<\/p>\n Later that morning, Cox said, \u201cYour generation has an opportunity to build a culture that is very different than what we are suffering through right now, not by pretending differences don\u2019t matter, but by embracing our differences and having those hard conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSocial media is a cancer on our society right now, and I would encourage\u2014again, I would encourage people to log off, turn off, touch grass, hug a family member, go out and do good in your community,\u201d Cox said. This advice might be particularly valuable to Trump, who has his own social-media network, which he uses to blast out invective at all hours of the day.<\/p>\n But if Cox and Trump represent two rival impulses within the Republican coalition, Trump is undoubtedly winning. \u201cDemocrats own what happened today,\u201d Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina said on Wednesday. \u201cY\u2019all caused this,\u201d Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida told Democrats on the House floor. \u201cIt\u2019s time for the Trump administration to shut down, defund, & prosecute every single Leftist organization,\u201d the influential Trump adviser Laura Loomer posted on X. \u201cWe must shut these lunatic leftists down. Once and for all. The Left is a national security threat.\u201d<\/p>\n Other influential figures on the right have been equally or more strident. \u201cThe Left is the party of murder,\u201d Elon Musk declared on X before a suspect had even been identified. Andrew Tate, the misogynist who has been charged with sex trafficking in two countries (which he denies); Alex Jones, the conspiracy-theorist broadcaster; and Libs of TikTok influencer Chaya Raichik all invoked \u201ccivil war.\u201d<\/p>\n (Notwithstanding accusations of stoking violence, prominent Democrats have consistently condemned Kirk\u2019s assassination. That\u2019s a vivid contrast to the mockery from many on the right\u2014including Donald Trump Jr.\u2014after a man attacked the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the muted reactions, disinformation, and silence that followed the assassination of the Democratic Minnesota legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband, this summer.)<\/p>\n No other politician can really hope to compete with a president\u2019s influence (though California Governor Gavin Newsom is certainly willing to try), and that is especially true of Trump, who is so omnipresent that a few days\u2019 absence from the spotlight led to rumors of his death. Even Cox has partly succumbed to Trump\u2019s gravitational pull. Although for a long time he distanced himself from the president\u2014one of the most notable Republicans to neither endorse Trump nor leave the GOP\u2014he eventually got behind him in the last election. As he told my colleague McKay Coppins, in a somewhat-pained interview, he understood Trump\u2019s character but thought that public criticism was useless. Instead, he hoped that Trump might at least modulate his tone if given sufficient positive reinforcement.<\/p>\n Cox was right to call for conciliation and peace today, but by now, he must surely know that his hopes for Trump were in vain. Other Americans can still benefit from Cox\u2019s reminder.<\/p>\n Related:<\/p>\n Here are three new stories from The Atlantic:<\/strong><\/p>\n Today\u2019s News<\/strong><\/p>\n The suspect in Charlie Kirk\u2019s shooting has been identified as 22-year-old Tyler James Robinson, Utah Governor Spencer Cox said at a news conference this morning. Robinson confessed to a family member before turning himself in to the police, Cox said.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Dispatches<\/strong><\/p>\n Explore all of our newsletters here.<\/em><\/p>\n Evening Read<\/strong><\/p>\n Illustration by Ben Kothe \/ The Atlantic. Sources: csa-archives \/ Getty; Nitas \/ Getty.<\/p>\n How Teacher Evaluations Broke the University<\/p>\n By Rose Horowitch<\/p>\n At the close of the fall semester, professors across the country will grade their students. Based on recent trends, those grades will be higher than ever. Around the same time, students will hand grades right back to their professors in the form of teacher evaluations. Those grades, too, will likely be higher than ever.<\/p>\n These two facts are very much related. American colleges, especially the most selective ones, are confronting the dual problems of rampant grade inflation and declining rigor. At Harvard, as I wrote recently, the percentage of A grades has more than doubled over the past 40 years, but students are doing less work than they used to. Teacher evaluations are a big part of how higher education got to this point. The scores factor into academics\u2019 pay, hiring, and chance to get tenure. But maximizing teacher ratings is very different from providing quality instruction. In fact, those aims are largely opposed. Faculty are incentivized to lighten students\u2019 workloads and give them better grades, lest they be punished themselves. \u201cTo some extent, we are all afraid of our students,\u201d one Harvard history professor told me.<\/p>\n Read the full article.<\/p>\n More From The Atlantic<\/em><\/p>\n Culture Break<\/p>\n Netflix<\/p>\n Explore. Yvonne Kim explains the fandom fueling Netflix\u2019s most popular movie ever, KPop Demon Hunters.<\/p>\n Watch. Forty years after Spinal Tap, history\u2019s most hapless band turns it up to 11 one last time, James Parker writes.<\/p>\n Play our daily crossword.<\/p>\n Rafaela Jinich contributed to this newsletter.<\/p>\n When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting <\/em>The Atlantic.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Updated at 7:23 p.m. ET on September 12, 2025 One small relief in an awful week is that Utah<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[7055,5394,81,12851],"class_list":{"0":"post-20994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-governor","9":"tag-speaking","10":"tag-trump","11":"tag-utahs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n