I gasped, hard, when I saw the alert that Charlie Kirk, age 31, was shot in the neck, in broad daylight, while speaking at a packed outdoor rally on the grounds of Utah Valley University. He was answering a question about mass shootings when gunned down beneath a pop-up tent. Given the profound and vicious divides of these times—Left versus Right, Democrats versus Republicans, red states versus blue states, citizens versus immigrants, and on and on—I had long feared we would enter a period of overt violence, and here we are.

I was absolutely aware that Charlie Kirk was a conservative activist, podcaster, social media influencer, and staunch ally of President Donald Trump.

Did I agree with what Charlie Kirk had to say about George Floyd, about the brain capacity of Black women, about Black airplane pilots, about the cancer of racism, about slavery, about Taylor Swift and marriage, about the LGBTQ community, or about the prevalence of guns in our society, one of which took his life? Absolutely not. I found his words, the sum of them, repugnant,........

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