I had a different column planned for this week — on the same topic that's in the title, as it so happens. But not five minutes before I sat down to write it, I heard that conservative commentator and speaker Charlie Kirk had been shot in the neck at a speaking event in Utah.

Before I could get even a few paragraphs completed, it was announced that he had died.

I'm sickened by this. Charlie was just 31 years old. A devout Christian. A husband and father of two little children. We had mutual friends. A founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie made a name for himself traveling to college campuses, engaging with young people, debunking falsehoods and presenting evidence for the positions he took, challenging his audience to think.

And for that, he was murdered. Killed in cold blood at an event where the shooter knew there would be phones and videos, so Charlie's family, friends, loved ones, colleagues and followers could watch him die not just once but over and over and over again.

All because Charlie had the courage to tell the truth.

I had originally chosen this topic because the Carnegie Corporation of New York is, for the third year in a row, soliciting proposals from academics and others notable people around the theme of why the United States has become so polarized. They offer large sums of money and the prestigious title of "Carnegie Fellow" to those chosen to produce scholarship or other writing on the subject.

I'm skeptical, however, about how much real impact this kind of work will have, because I don't get the sense that journalists, academics or policymakers are interested in listening to anyone who doesn't already agree with them.

So, I'll offer my own explanation. Charlie's murder is just the latest example in a long litany of horrific examples that explain why America is so polarized. And it comes down to this:

The division in America is, at its core, between those who want the truth — want to know it and want to be able to say it — and those who believe that with power comes the right to decide what the truth is, and to substitute a "narrative," if that suits their purposes.

America is polarized because Americans have been betrayed and manipulated and exploited and lied to by the most important cultural institutions we have — government, the medical profession, the justice system, the educational system, the media, the entertainment industry.

I could write a book with examples, but here are just a few:

— We were lied to about the origins of COVID-19. We were lied to about our government's role in funding the gain-of-function research that made a virus like COVID-19 possible.

— We were lied to about the safety of the mRNA shots, which were never vaccines.

— We were lied to about who was at greatest risk from contracting COVID-19. We were lied to about the actual immunity that came with contracting the virus versus taking shot after shot after shot.

— We were manipulated and forced by the government, employers and educational institutions into taking those injections, shutting down our businesses, closing our schools and masking our children. We were lied to about the real dangers that the mRNA shots posed to young people and pregnant women. We are still trying to discover the health risks of those shots and to calculate the economic and educational losses caused by those decisions.

— In fact, it now appears that we've not been told the truth about the safety of the childhood vaccines generally — at least with the current scheduled amount of them.

— During the 2016 presidential election, our government was actively using social media corporations to censor us, and only Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter (now X) exposed that vile conspiracy.

— We were lied to about Joe Biden's mental capacity and actual engagement not only while he was running for reelection in 2024 but throughout his entire term as president of the United States.

— We continue to be told by medical professionals, school administrators, teachers and others that men can become women, and vice versa, by force of will. We are told that toddlers can change their "gender" and that biological males have no physical advantage over females in sports. Families with children suffering with mental or emotional illness are manipulated and exploited, told that their children will commit suicide if not allowed to "transition," assisted by drugs that will destroy their future fertility, prevent adult sexual maturity and possibly exacerbate mental illness, and with surgeries that will mutilate or remove otherwise healthy body parts.

— We have been told that retail theft on a widespread scale is "reparations," that rioting and burning are "mostly peaceful protests," that keeping criminals incarcerated is "racist," that allowing the homeless, the mentally ill and those with addictions to live out their horrors on public streets is "compassionate," and that opposing illegal immigration is selfish and xenophobic.

— We have watched as the death of a drug addict is celebrated with thousands of news articles, elaborate funerals, a gold casket and weeping politicians, but an innocent young Ukrainian woman stabbed to death by a repeat felon on public transit doesn't even warrant a single story. (And when she does get news coverage, her death is downplayed by the legacy media as just clickbait for conservatives.)

America is polarized because the people and institutions we should be able to trust lie to us as a matter of course for their own benefit, and because anyone who tries to get to the truth and bring it to the attention of the public — in fact, anyone with an opinion that runs counter to that of the elites is this country — is denounced as a conspiracy theorist, a kook, a threat to "our democracy," to "public health" and to some people's very existence.

That inflammatory rhetoric is completely detached from reality and encourages violence. We are seeing it. Every. Single. Day. And yet, even when confronted with the consequences of their exaggerations and lies, those who create and amplify them don't backpedal, they don't apologize, they don't reconsider.

They double down. They blame the victim. They gaslight us harder.

That's why America is so polarized. That's why social media is filled with posts proclaiming that conservatives and Trump supporters deserve to die. And I won't be surprised if it turns out that that's why Charlie Kirk was shot and killed.

To find out more about Laura Hollis and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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