Charlie Kirk was emblematic of a country polarised and imploding

By Melissa Butcher, Professor Emeritus, Social and Cultural Geography, Royal Holloway University of London

In December 2021, I was in an exhibition hall in Phoenix, Arizona, with 10,000 young people who had come to hear a lineup of “America first” speakers, from Tucker Carlson to Ted Cruz. This was AmericaFest, an annual rally led by Turning Point USA, a conservative youth organisation whose founder and CEO, Charlie Kirk, was murdered on September 10.

I have spent the past four years listening most days to Kirk’s view of the world…

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