The Martyr Machine: How America Manufactures Saints & Sinners

Charlie Kirk was gunned down on September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University while hosting one of his American Comeback Tour events. The shooting was immediately labeled a political assassination by Utah officials. Both Democrats and Republicans condemned it in strong terms (AP). That part is fact.

But facts don’t sit still in America. Within hours, Kirk’s killing was being spun into something bigger: hashtags, tribute videos, calls for vengeance. On the right, he was framed as a martyr — a man murdered by the left’s hatred. On the left, the reaction was more complicated: condemnation of the violence, yes, but also a refusal to canonize someone who openly called for gay people to be stoned to death.

That’s the thing about America. We don’t just bury people; we remake them. And we’ve built a machine that decides who gets remembered as a saint, and who gets erased like they never existed.

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the martyr economy

Martyrdom in the U.S. has never been about the truth of someone’s life. It’s about what their death can be used for.

• MLK, JFK, RFK: instantly sanctified into icons of hope and unity.
• Fred Hampton, Malcolm X: demonized as dangerous radicals until decades later, when history softened their edges for mainstream comfort.
• 9/11 victims: honored endlessly at home, while countless Afghan and Iraqi civilians — whose deaths were part of the same chain of events — were rendered invisible.

Death in America is currency. The machine mints martyrs and sinners as needed.

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charlie kirk’s record, rewritten

Let’s not pretend Kirk was a neutral figure. His record is out there:

• He advocated for stoning LGBTQ people, citing Leviticus.
• He repeatedly attacked immigrants, voting rights, and Martin Luther King Jr.
• He built a career on provocation, outrage, and demonization.

But the moment the bullet struck, all of that was erased. The martyr machine kicked in: he was no longer a man with a history of cruel rhetoric, but a symbol — “a fallen soldier for freedom,” as right-wing media framed it.

The irony? The same figures demanding respect for Kirk’s memory have no problem mocking, dismissing, or justifying the killing of Palestinians in Gaza.

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gaza: the erased martyrs

Since October 2023, Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed tens of thousands of civilians, many of them children (UN OCHA). Entire neighborhoods have been flattened. Families wiped out. Journalists and aid workers targeted.

Where is the martyr framing for them? Where are the tear-stained tributes, the “never forget” campaigns? They don’t exist. Gaza’s victims are stripped of names, faces, individuality. They’re reduced to statistics at best, or written off as “human shields” at worst.

That’s the selective outrage of the martyr machine. Kirk’s killing gets nonstop coverage, wall-to-wall memorials, and a political weaponization of grief. Gaza’s dead vanish into silence.

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the mechanics of memory

The martyr machine works like this:

• Selection – Decide which deaths serve power.
• Sanctification – Strip away the messy details of a life. Replace with slogans and symbols.
• Erasure – Ignore or minimize the deaths that complicate the narrative.
• Deployment – Use the martyr to rally your base, justify policies, or attack your enemies.

Charlie Kirk is being canonized because his death fits the narrative the right needs. Gaza’s dead are erased because their memory threatens the story Washington and Tel Aviv want told.

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conclusion: saints, sinners, and silence

In America, sainthood isn’t about virtue. It’s about utility. Who benefits from your death? Whose agenda does it advance?

Charlie Kirk is now etched into the right’s pantheon of martyrs — polished, sanctified, and weaponized. Gaza’s victims are ghosts, denied even the dignity of remembrance. That’s not history. That’s narrative control.

And if we don’t call it out, we’ll keep mistaking propaganda for memory.

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Stay curious.

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sources

Associated Press — Conservative activist Charlie Kirk shot, killed during Utah Valley University event (Sept. 10, 2025) https://apnews.com/article/8357c3d102de09e3320fde761258131a

Associated Press — Utah officials call Kirk’s death a political assassination; both parties condemn violence https://apnews.com/article/charlie-kirk-conservative-activist-shot-546165a8151104e0938a5e085be1e8bd

UN OCHA — Occupied Palestinian Territory: Gaza Emergency Situation Reports (civilian casualties, humanitarian impact) https://www.ochaopt.org

Wikipedia — Killing of Charlie Kirk (overview, timeline, reactions) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Charlie_Kirk