Off Ramp: How to Be a Peacemaker in an Age of Contempt

“A huge majority of Americans love our country and want a healthier, happier civic life. Governor Spencer Cox’s Off Ramp is the guide we need to get us there.” —Arthur C. Brooks, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Meaning of Your Life

“A levelheaded recipe for getting away from the death spiral of partisanship that threatens to extinguish the supremely American virtues of compromise, resilience, problem-solving, and empathy. . . . A road map for restoration and repair.” —Ken Burns, two-time Academy Award nominee and Emmy and Peabody Award–winning producer and director of The Civil War and The American Revolution

Utah Governor Spencer Cox’s practical guide to depolarization teaches us how to disagree better at the dinner table, on social media, and in American politics

In September 2025, following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Governor Spencer Cox stood at a podium and addressed a fractured and grieving nation.

He urged Americans to find a way to stop hating one another, or—at the very least, he said—to stop shooting each other. His words were balm to a nation desperate for an off ramp from rising political violence.

But a single speech cannot transform a country. It takes all of us working together. It takes a blueprint for healing, depolarization, and peacemaking.

Off Ramp is that blueprint.

In this practical and patriotic guide, Governor Cox pulls from his experience at the highest levels of civic leadership and cutting-edge depolarization research to encourage Americans to disagree better and restore the respect that we once had even for our political rivals. As America approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it’s time to remember what makes America strong, and leave behind the behaviors and rhetoric that threaten to destroy us.