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Connor: The next piece compares the Hagiography surrounding Kirk with the Hagiography of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Kobe Bryant and Queen Elizabeth. Perhaps the author steps carefully because of the “sensitivity” around the issue, but it is painfully clear that Kirk’s case is in a completely different stratosphere. The amount of memes and volumes of social media posts may be comparable, but not the number of powerful forces aiming to profit. In Kirk’s case, the Trump administration, Israel, the military, the national security state, ice, the civilian prison industry, the technologically accelerated Christian nationalists, and I may have forgotten. Another obvious difference is that an individual died of natural causes, or, in the case of Bryant, he died in an accident. Kirk is assassinated and there are many holes in the official story that may never be satisfied.
That being said, below reminds us of the usual baseline American Hagiography for public figures and its digital supercharge. Both are currently being misused.
Arthur “Art” Gypson, associate professor of sociology, anthropology and social work at the University of Dayton. It was originally published in conversation.
Ai generated image of Charlie Kirk embracing Jesus. Another one of Kirk posing with Angel Wings and Hello. There is one of Kirk standing with George Floyd at the gates of heaven.
When a prominent political or cultural figure in the United States dies, ESIR’s memories of life often turn into hagiography. And that’s what’s happening from the sanitary killing of conservative activists and Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk.
The word hagiography comes from the Christian tradition of writing about the life of a saint, but the practice falls under the umbrella of sociology, the “religion of politics,” and expels clever politics and media. In particular, assassinations and violent death tend to be interpreted in sacred terms. A person becomes a secular martian with heroic sacrifices. They are described as morally just and spiritually pure.
Well done, my good and faithful servant. pic.twitter.com/gicj6hjrk8
-Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 14, 2025
This is to target the natural part of lament. But a closer look at why this happens and how the internet accelerates, provides an important shock to American politics today.
From the president to the protest leaders
Ronald Reagan’s construction of the post-presidential image is a prime example of this process.
After his president, Republican leaders steadily hone his memory into a conservative symbol of victory, downplaying scandals such as early skepticism of Iranian Contra and Reagan’s civil rights. Today, Reagan is remembered as a complex politician and a saint of more free markets and patriotism.
Among the liberals, Martin Luther King Jr. experienced comparable translations, but took a different form. The king’s criticism of capitalism, militarism and structural racism is disguised in most mainstream memories and remains in the soft image of a peaceful dreamer. While the annual public holidays, street renaming and public mural scores honor him, they also tame his legacy into a universally tasty unified tale.
Further answered numbers such as John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln show the same pattern. Their assassinations followed a wave of mourning, elevating them to approximate positions.
Decades after Kennedy’s death, his portraits hanged in the homes of many American Catholics, often adjacent to the religious iconography as statues of the Virgin Mary. Meanwhile, Lincoln is a scholar like a civic saint: his memorial in Washington, DC, locks like a temple, as words from his speeches are protected by walls.
Why does it happen and what does it mean?
Celebrity Hagiography serves several purposes. It exploits deep human needs and helps grief communities manage their losses by bringing moral change.
It also allows political movements to sanctify and consolidate power by ES leaders. And it reassures followers that their cause was correct – even in the universe.
In the hope of polarization, the height of a person to a saint does more than honor an individual. It turns political struggle into sacred. If you see Sub-people about martians, then opposition to their movement is not merely a difference of opinion, it is abandoned. In this sense, hagiography is not merely a reminder of the dead. It mobilizes creatures.
But there is a risk. Eleven Sumone is framed as a saint, and criticism becomes taboo. The more critical you become, the more difficult it is to discuss flaws, mistakes, or controversial actions. Hegiograph flattens history and narrows democratic debate.
After Queen Elizabeth II’s death in 2022, public lament in Britain and abroad has rapidly raised her legacy to symbols of stability and continuity, as massive tributes, viral imaging and global rituals transform complex governance into a simplified narrative of dedication and service.
It also promotes polarization. If one side’s leader is a martian, the other side must be a villain. The framing is simple but powerful.
Supporters of Charlie Kirk are holding a banner outside the State Farm Stadium in Graindale, Arizona during Kirk’s opening ceremony in September. 21, 2025. AndrewCaballero-Reynolds/AFP Getty Images
In Kirk’s case, many of his supporters described him as someone who seeks the truth. At Kirk’s additional service ceremony in Arizona, President Donald Trump called him “a martial artist for American freedom.” On social media, he described him as “America’s biggest martian for free speech” on the official X accounts of Turning Point USA and Kirk.
In doing so, they raised his death as a symbol of a bigger battle over censorship. By highlighting the fact that he died while simply talking, they also reinforced the idea that liberals and the left are more likely to resort to violence to silence their ideological enemies, as evidence suggests others.
Digital Supercharge
Treating public figures like saints is nothing new, but the speed and scale of the process is. Over the past 20 years, social media has changed hagiography from a slow cultural drift to a rapid ignition cycle.
Memes, live streams and hashtags allow you to normalize the subn that everyone respects. When NBA Hall of Fame Kobe Bryant passed away in 2020, social media flooded within Houns with dedicated images, murals and video editing that made him more than Anhan Anhlete.
Kobe Bryant#kobebryant #kobe #RIP pic.twitter.com/5faniavku6
– Addictive ai August 14, 2024
Similarly, following the death of Ruth Budder Ginsberg, the ecosystem of “infamous RBG” memes quickly expanded to include digital portraits and merchandise casting as advocates for sacred justice.
The same dynamic monkeyed out Charlie Kirk. Within hours of the assassination, Kirk memes, carried by Jesus, appeared, covered in the American flag.
A few days after his death, Kirk’s audio clips, styled as a “sermon,” began to circulate online, but supporters shared biblical poems that they claimed were consistent with the timing of his death. Together, these acts cast his death in religious terms. It was a political assassination – it was a moment of spiritual meaning.
Clips and poems like this easily spread across social media, with stories about public figures solidifying within hours, often effort can be made before the facts are confirmed, with little room for nuance or investigation.
Also, easy-to-create memes and videos allow regular users to participate in the sacrumization process, making more grassroots efforts than sub-missing edered from the top download.
In other words, digital culture transforms the slow work of monuments and textbooks into 11 living flexible folk religions of culture and politics.
Towards Crerael politics
Hagiography is not dispapaive. It meets emotional and political needs too effectively. But we acknowledge that the pattern helps citizens and journalists resist that distortion. The task is to maintain a space for nuance and accountability rather than denying sadness or praise.
In the United States, where religion, culture and politics frequently speak out, gathering that political saints are always construction and strategic can allow people to respect losses without directing the myths to the cell of public life.
