This episode first aired in 2023, focusing on the strategies to motivate young voters and we’re sharing it again in the wake of the Sept. 10, 2025, assassination of Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA. Kirk, a renowned conservative youth organizer, was shot and killed during a campus event at Utah Valley University. Nothing divides Americans like politics — but young voters continue to matter. Host Trey Kay talks with journalist Kyle Spencer, whose book Raising Them Right traces how conservative organizers spent years building a youth movement on campuses. Spencer says the growth was strategic and well funded. Money can organize power, she notes, though it doesn’t force a single, uniform ideology on young people. Kay also talks with Abby Kiesa of Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), who explains how youth participation has shifted in the Trump era and why a deeper problem persists: the political system still struggles to turn young people’s political interest into sustained turnout. Revisiting this Us & Them episode in the wake of Kirk’s death offers context for how campus-based organizing — and reactions to it — have shaped youth politics today.

As the United States prepares to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, attention is focused on the relevance of the American Revolution to our country today. The new episode of Us & Them spotlights a recent community event at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.Va with host Trey Kay and three top historians to talk about the realities of our revolutionary past. Ken Burns’ upcoming PBS series The American Revolution shines a light on the war that transformed 13 colonies into a nation. This timely episode of Us & Them revisits America’s origin story with fresh eyes, probing what we remember, what we forget, and why it matters now.

Just as America faces some of its most critical political divides, our criminal justice system suffers from a lack of public trust. How are these dual crises interwoven? In this episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay talks with legal scholar David Sklansky, a Stanford professor who co-directs the school’s Criminal Justice Center. In his new book “Criminal Justice in Divided America,” Sklansky says reforming the nation’s justice system may be at the core of recovering our democracy. In fact, he says there are clear approaches and solutions to help reform what’s broken and that even the basic concept of the jury trial can re-educate us in the skills and habits required to work across differences in a pluralistic democracy. In the end, Sklansky says the criminal justice system is one of the few places where Americans of varying beliefs and persuasions engage with each other to make important decisions.

Every day, 10,000 people turn 65 as America’s Baby Boom generation ages. By 2040, the number of people 85 or older will more than double and the need for caregivers will grow dramatically. In this episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay moderates a community conversation focused on some of the unique caregiving needs in West Virginia where nearly 21% of the population is over 65. We’ll also hear excerpts from a recently released PBS documentary called Caregiving from producer Bradley Cooper. With the potential for Medicaid cuts over the next decade, access to caregiving programs may be a challenge especially for rural regions.

Every week across the U.S. more than two newspapers go out of business. In the past two decades more than 3,000 papers have shut down operations. That’s left more than 1,500 counties so-called news deserts. Forty-three of West Virginia’s 55 counties have just one local news source and that limited access gives the state a ranking of 46th out of all 50 states. Studies show when local news sources vanish, the result is a drop in community participation on many levels. On the next episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay visits some regional news deserts to talk about the way local news organizations help a community see and define itself. Some say local coverage is the glue that brings a place together and in Putnam County the Hurricane Breeze continues to offer essential local news while in Greenbrier County, a startup is working to bring back that voice.

The perception of crime in our nation shows an enormous divide. One recent poll reports 90% of Republicans say crime is up while 60% of Democrats say crime is down. The result has been a wave of ‘tough on crime’ laws from states across the political spectrum that expand the definition of violent crimes and their penalties. The 2024 Safer Kentucky Act is one of those omnibus crime bills that some say casts too wide a net.

In this episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay looks at the history of America’s crime laws to check on provisions that are back - like the so-called Three Strikes law that’s part of Kentucky’s crime bill. In the 1990s, they addressed violent drug crimes, however over the decades the costs of incarcerating more and more people became too big a burden.

Our country’s divides often reveal themselves in our choices and habits, including how and where we get our information. As the economics of the media landscape have imploded, the economics of the industry have forced changes. In the past two decades, online sites have taken over much of the income stream from classified ads and general advertising. Many local news outlets have gone out of business and there are now more than 200 counties across the country with no source of local news, communities often referred to as news deserts. One of those news deserts is McDowell County in West Virginia. Last year, publisher Missy Nester was forced to shut down the Welch Daily News after a valiant effort to keep the paper running. Join host Trey Kay and reporter Todd Melby on this episode of Us & Them to see what happens when local news organizations stop telling the stories of a community.

This episode was recently honored with a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for Best News Documentary and by the Virginias Associated Press Broadcasters for Best Documentary .

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling just out upholds a state ban on gender affirming care for transgender minors. The Tennessee case will likely bolster efforts by conservative state lawmakers to regulate care for transgender Americans. It’s the most recent effort in the culture war over gender identity and LGBTQ rights. On this episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay hears about the fallout from this social and political battle for transgender people in West Virginia. Kay also talks with people shaping the debate over transgender rights. LGBTQ allies say the legal and legislative efforts deny trans people the right to declare their own gender identity, while some conservative policy makers say transgender women are erasing women’s rights; from privacy in the bathroom to athletic competition. The transgender population, estimated at less than one percent of America, is a social lightening rod of our culture wars.