“ Charlie Kirk was the one who stood up for us, and that’s why these radical leftists had to take him out,” remarked one of my fellow football players at my staunchly conservative college. He wasn’t the only one. Many teammates were rightfully mad. But instead of directing their anger toward only the killer, they blamed everyone on the left for the actions of one fringe individual. This instinct to condemn the whole other side for the actions of one crazy person isn’t new; and it sows seeds of hatred that only deepen our divides.

Growing up in the early 2020s, Charlie Kirk’s face was everywhere, and that shaped how my generation saw politics and the world. He wasn’t just influential for my right-leaning friends; Kirk changed how many young liberals saw the GOP and how they defined the

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