While Washington fights with itself, the West is trying to get some work done.
Turn on national news and you see a Congress that can barely pass a budget and leaders who seem more interested in viral clips than in governing.
Then you watch Wyoming’s Mark Gordon sit on stage with Utah’s Spencer Cox and talk about nuclear compacts, wildlife crossings, and how to keep kids in rural communities. The difference is hard to miss.
Gordon likes to say he feels blessed to be a Western governor because his colleagues understand that results matter more than speeches.
Cox, who chairs the National Governors Association, has gone further and built an entire project around the idea that leaders need to “disagree better,” instead of shouting louder.
Together they offer a version of politics that looks a lot more like Wyoming than the nightly shouting matches from Washington.
Part of that comes from who they are.
Gordon grew up in ranch country, studied history, then came home to run a family ranch and businesses in tourism and energy before becoming state treasurer and later governor.
Cox grew up on a farm in the little town of Fairview, worked as a lawyer, helped run his family’s broadband company, and climbed the local ladder from city council to county commission to state representative to lieutenant governor.
Both know what it means to live in a small town where people remember whether you keep your word.
Their states are not the same. Wyoming is energy heavy and sparsely populated, working to stabilize revenues while diversifying into technology and value-added industries. Utah is one of the fastest growing states in the country, with tech employers, housing pressure, and big fights over water.
Listen to Gordon and Cox together and the shared priorities stand out anyway: strong economies, solid schools, reliable and affordable energy, and respect for the land and water that keep their states alive.
The collaboration is not a talking point.
Gordon helped lead a Wyoming sage grouse strategy that persuaded federal officials to back away from an endangered listing by showing that states could protect habitat while allowing development.
Cox has made growth management, housing affordability, broadband, and rural opportunity central to his agenda and works with neighboring governors on energy resilience, water, and infrastructure.
Cox talks often about his “Super Abundance” mindset. He tells the story of a piano that contains no songs of its own and a rock of uranium that meant nothing for most of human history until someone learned how to unlock its energy.
The point is straightforward. Human creativity, not fear and scarcity, will decide whether the Mountain West thrives in this century.
That belief in human potential sits at the center of his “Disagree Better” work. Cox borrows Yuval Levin’s reminder that unity does not mean thinking the same.
Unity means acting together. He warns that when people stop talking to each other, they start looking for enemies, and that is where politics begins to shade into something much darker.
Gordon sounds the same alarm in his own way.
He has begun to say out loud that national factions are seeping into Wyoming politics, bringing a style of permanent warfare that feels imported from cable news rather than from ranch country.
In his words, those groups “are not going to talk to each other” and are more interested in torpedoing one another’s ideas than in making the state better.
The Gordon – Cox model points toward a different path. They argue hard about policy. They defend their principles. Then they sign agreements, pool staff talent, and look for projects that help the whole region compete and give young people a reason to build lives in the interior West.
So here is the question for Wyoming voters.
When you look at candidates for school board, county commission, legislature, or governor, do you see people who are willing to sit at a table with folks they disagree with and hammer out solutions.
Or do you see performers who seem more interested in punishing enemies and feeding the national outrage machine.
Western values are more than slogans on a campaign mailer.
They are a way of life built around family, faith, hard work, and neighbors who show up when the wind takes the roof off a barn.
That culture depends on people who argue fiercely when needed and still show up for one another when the work starts.
While Washington fights, Wyoming still has the option to build.
We can choose leaders who collaborate across borders and across inter-party divisions, who respect Western identity enough to protect it through growth, and who measure success by the condition of our communities rather than by their social media following.
That is the Western way, and it remains available if we decide to claim it.
Gail Symons can be reached at: GailSymons@mac.com
