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My governor wants Americans to stop shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater.

Generally wise advice, that. But it is hard to take him seriously when the theater is, indeed, on fire. And he has come to support one of the worst political arsonists in American history.

To be fair, Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah, faces a dilemma that burdens many of his party’s leaders, especially those who were active before the rise of Donald Trump and may wish to do meaningful work after he is gone. How to behave so as to have hope that the MAGA beast you deplore might eat you last.

Cox has earned himself a lot of national media attention recently for what he calls the “Disagree Better” campaign, launched a couple of years ago with a bipartisan collective of other U.S. governors. He has appeared with Democrats including Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, and Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania to promote the idea.

The initiative took on added significance in September when the right-wing firebrand Charlie Kirk was murdered while giving an open-air talk at Utah Valley University in Orem.

Cox was right to seize the occasion to repeat his call for Americans to reject political violence, turn down the temperature, get off social media algorithms that deliberately fry your brain, and learn to talk rather than fight. He took advantage of the increased media focus to take his message to such prominent news outlets as 60 Minutes on CBS and NPR’s Morning Edition.

“I’m not asking anybody to hold hands and hug it out,” he told CBS correspondent Scott Pelley. “I’m trying to get people to stop shooting each other.”

Sensible people can raise no argument to that. And it is difficult to watch or listen to Cox and argue that he is anything but sincere.

But the governor’s peace message is all but overwhelmed by the........

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