On the heels of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, all of us are looking for a reason as to why such a horrific event occurred. Although the shooter’s motives remain unclear, we know the act was planned. The individual sought the death of Charlie Kirk. Using a rifle aimed at Charlie’s body and firing a bullet with precision, the shooter snatched the physical body of a son, husband, and father.

As the criminal justice process unfolds over the coming weeks and months, there will be no shortage of reasons offered up by politicians, pundits, activists, or really anyone with a social media account as to why the shooter chose violence. Some will blame Americans’ easy access to guns; some will blame the mental health crisis in America; some will blame Charlie’s rhetoric as hostile and toxic, driving individuals to violence – not as the last resort, but as the only resort; and many will blame the political environment entirely.

I can’t help but wonder if it’s none of those things, at least not exclusively. I wonder if we simply can’t stomach disagreement. I wonder if the idea of disagreement repulses us. I wonder if we do not have the attention span for it anymore, and as a result, we lash out irrationally. We pitch a fit, and the fits are becoming increasingly more violent, and such violence is becoming increasingly more accepted.

Here’s a challenge: pick a political issue, any issue. Read an article about it in the New York Times and then read an article about the same issue in the Wall Street Journal. Next, read a study published about your issue by the Center for American Progress, and then read a study about the same issue, but published by The Heritage Foundation. Finally, watch a segment about your issue on CNN and then watch a segment on the same issue on Fox News.

Does this sound tiring? Do you have the attention span to complete this exercise, or did you open Instagram while reading my challenge to you? In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “attention span” is defined as: the length of time during which one (such as an individual or a group) is able to concentrate or remain interested.

Americans have lost their ability to concentrate. We are so dependent upon instant gratification that we are no longer willing to consume information thoughtfully and thoroughly, especially information that triggers an emotional, financial, or physical response, as many political issues tend to do. We consume no more than 3-minute reels, or 280-character posts, or the near-immediate responses from Siri.

Our attention span, or lack thereof, is why we are no longer willing to stomach disagreement. Charlie Kirk? Ick. (right thumb upward swipe). AOC? Nope. (right thumb upward swipe). We live in a society where our devices’ algorithms feed us content. Like pigs lined up at a trough, the slops get dumped, and we eat them up without care or consequence. As a result, our minds have been trained to match disagreement with, at best, annoyance, but at worst, hostility. The idea of taking the time and effort to absorb opposing opinions with careful consideration and critical thought has escaped us. It has become a part of our history. It is a prehistoric concept for our youngest generations.

The sad reality is that democracy thrives on disagreement. Disagreement is a foundational tenet of democracy. We need Charlie Kirk as much as we need the groups that he so often criticized. Our nation’s sickness is not that these activist individuals and groups exist; it’s the inability of its citizens to consume information and be willing to disagree peacefully. Until we find our collective attention span, our nation will only tumble farther down this ugly rabbit hole.