The Martyrdom of Charlie Kirk - Read by Eunice Wong

This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actor

Text originally published September 11, 2025.

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Full Text:

The assassination of Charlie Kirk presages a new, deadly stage in the disintegration of a fractious and highly polarized United States. While toxic rhetoric and threats are lobbed across cultural divides like hand grenades, sometimes spilling over into actual violence — including the murder of Minnesota House of Representatives Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband and the two assassination attempts against Donald Trump — Kirk’s killing is a harbinger of full-scale social disintegration.

His murder has given the movement he represented — grounded in Christian nationalism — a martyr. Martyrs are the lifeblood of violent movements. Any flinching over the use of violence, any talk of compassion or understanding, any effort to mediate or discuss, is a betrayal of the martyr and the cause the martyr died defending.

Martyrs sacralize violence. They are used to turn the moral order upside down. Depravity becomes morality. Atrocities become heroism. Crime becomes justice. Hate becomes virtue. Greed and nepotism become civic virtues. Murder becomes good. War is the final aesthetic. This is what is coming.

“We have to have steely resolve,” said conservative political strategist Steve Bannon on his show “War Room,” adding, “Charlie Kirk is a casualty of war. We are at war in this country. We are.”

“If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is to fight or die,” wrote Elon Musk on X.

“The entire Right has to band together. Enough of this in-fighting b******t. We are up against demonic forces from the pit of Hell,” wrote commentator and author Matt Walsh on X. “Put the personal squabbles aside. Now’s not the time. This is existential. A fight for our own existence and the existence of our country.”

Republican Congressman Clay Higgins wrote that he will use, "Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk..." He further states "I’m also going after their business licenses and permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be kicked from every school, and their drivers licenses should be revoked. I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination."

Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale capitalized on Kirk’s death to advocate for a takedown of the “red-green alliance” of “Communists and Islamists” who he claims have united to destroy Western civilization. He proposes an app where citizens can upload pictures of crime and homelessness in exchange for “property-tax rebates.”

Far-right comedian Sam Hyde, who has nearly half a million followers on X, wrote in response to Trump’s announcement of Kirk's death that it is, "Time to do your f*****g job and seize power… if you want to be more than a footnote in the ‘American Collapse’ section of future history books, it's now or never.” In his tweet, he tags members of the administration and private military contractors.

Conservative actor James Woods warned, “Dear leftists: we can have a conversation or a civil war. One more shot from your side and you will not get this choice again.” His tweet was reposted by almost 20,000 people, received 4.9 million views and over 96,000 likes.

These are a sample of the slew of vitriolic sentiments shared and cheered on by tens of millions of Americans.

The dispossession of the working class, 30 million who have been laid off because of deindustrialization, has engendered rage, despair, dislocation, alienation and fostered magical thinking. It has fed conspiracy theories, a lust for vengeance and a celebration of violence as a purgative for social and cultural decay.

Christian fascists — like Kirk and Trump — have astutely preyed on this despair. They stoked the embers. Kirk’s killing will set it alight.

Dissidents, artists, gays, intellectuals, the poor, the vulnerable, people of color, those who are undocumented or who do not mindlessly repeat the cant of a perverted Christian nationalism, will be condemned as human contaminants to be excised from the body politic. They will become, as in all diseased societies, sacrificial victims in the vain attempt to achieve moral renewal and recapture a lost glory and prosperity.

The cannibalization of society, a futile attempt to recreate a mythical America, will accelerate the disintegration. The intoxication of violence — many of those reacting to Kirk’s killing seemed giddy about a looming bloodbath — will feed on itself like a firestorm.

The martyr is vital to the crusade, in this case ridding America of those Trump calls the “radical left.”

Martyrs are memorialized in ceremonies and acts of remembrance to remind followers of the righteousness of the cause and the perfidy of those who are blamed for the martyr’s death. This is what Trump did when he called Kirk “a martyr for truth and freedom” in a video message on September 10, awarded Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom and ordered flags to be flown at half-staff until Sunday. It is why Kirk's casket will be flown back to Phoenix, Arizona on Air Force Two.

Kirk was a poster child for our emergent Christian Fascism. He peddled the Great Replacement Theory, which claims liberals or “globalists” allow immigrants of color into the country in order to replace whites, distorting immigration trends into conspiracy. He was Islamophobic, tweeting “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America,” and that it is “not compatible with western civilization.”

When children’s YouTuber Ms. Rachel said “Jesus says to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself,” Kirk retorted that “Satan has quoted scripture plenty” and added “by the way Ms. Rachel, you might wanna crack open that Bible of yours, in a lesser referenced part of the same part of scripture is in Leviticus 18, is that thou shall Lay with another man and be stoned to death.”

He demanded we roll back the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and disparaged civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King. He was demeaning towards Black people, “If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman...is she there because of affirmative action?” He said “prowling Blacks” are targeting white people “for fun.” He blamed Black Lives Matter for “destroying the fabric of our society."

Kirk insisted the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. He founded Professor Watchlist and School Board Watchlist to purge professors and teachers with what he called “radical leftist” agendas. He advocated televised public executions which he insisted should be mandatory viewing for children.

The idea that he championed free speech and liberty is absurd. He was an enemy of both.

Kirk, who was a cheerleader for the cult of Trump, embodied the hypermasculinity that is at the core of fascist movements. This was perhaps his primary attraction to youth, especially white men. He claimed there is “a war on men,” fetishized guns and sold Trump to his followers as a man’s man.

“There’s a lot you can call Donald Trump,” he wrote. “No one has ever called him feminine. Trump is a giant middle finger to all the screeching hall monitors that attacked young men for just existing. He’s a giant F YOU to the feminist establishment that was never challenged before he came down the golden escalator. Most of the media missed this. Young men did not.”

History has shown what comes next. It won’t be pleasant. Kirk, elevated to martyrdom, gives those seeking to extinguish our democracy the license to kill, just as Kirk was killed. It lifts what few constraints still exist to protect us from state abuse and vigilante violence. Kirk’s name and visage will be employed to accelerate the road to tyranny, which is as he would have wanted it.

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Photos

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TOPSHOT - A general view of a wreath laid by mourners outside the US Embassy in Pretoria on September 11, 2025 following the fatal shooting of US youth activist and influencer Charlie Kirk while speaking during an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, United States. US youth activist and influencer Charlie Kirk, a major ally of President Donald Trump, was shot on September 10, 2025 at a US university. (Photo by Phill Magakoe / AFP) (Photo by PHILL MAGAKOE/AFP via Getty Images)

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US right-wing activist Charlie Kirk (R) speaks on stage with President Donald Trump at America Fest 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 22, 2024. Right-wing youth activist and influencer Charlie Kirk, a major ally of President Donald Trump, was shot dead on September 10, 2025 in a murder that sparked fears of more political violence in an increasingly febrile United States. Trump confirmed on social media that Kirk, 31, had died from his injuries. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON / AFP) (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)

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A photo of youth activist and influencer Charlie Kirk is seen at his makeshift memorial at Orem City Center Park in Orem, Utah, a day after he was shot during a public event at Utah Valley University on September 11, 2025. (Photo by Melissa MAJCHRZAK / AFP) (Photo by MELISSA MAJCHRZAK/AFP via Getty Images)

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PHOENIX, ARIZONA - SEPTEMBER 11: The casket containing the body of Charlie Kirk is removed from Air Force Two at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on September 11, 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona. Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed on Wednesday in Utah. (Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images)

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US conservative political activist and YouTuber, Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, speaks at University of Nevada in Reno during his "You're Being Brainwashed" tour, October 8, 2024. (Photo by Andri Tambunan / AFP) (Photo by ANDRI TAMBUNAN/AFP via Getty Images)

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