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 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 U.S. 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.

* 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 injections, shutting down our businesses, closing our schools and masking our children.