Excusing Anti-Trump Rhetoric Will Have Terrible Ramifications

The Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service opened an investigation into former FBI Director James B. Comey after he posted an Instagram photo of seashells on a beach arranged to spell “86 47” — a message many interpreted as a call to assassinate the 47th president, Donald J. Trump.

Comey quickly deleted the post after backlash, saying: “I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

Trump was unconvinced and said Comey knew it was “calling for the assassination of the president.”

According to Merriam-Webster, “86” means “to refuse to serve” or “to get rid of.” But Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang also defines “86” as shorthand for “to kill, to murder; to execute judicially.” Even by Comey’s own admission, he recognized the message as political.

Broader Pattern

This controversy comes amid years of increasingly extreme rhetoric from Democratic leaders, many of whom have likened Trump to Adolf Hitler. Former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris have drawn such comparisons, while figures such as former Vice President Al Gore have directly invoked Nazi Germany when criticizing the Trump administration’s policies.

The media has also amplified the narrative that Trump is an existential threat to the United States. The June 2024 cover of The New Republic featured Trump rendered as Hitler under the headline, “American Fascism. What It Would Look Like.”

Less than a month after that cover was published, an assassination attempt on Trump’s life nearly succeeded in Butler, Pennsylvania. Days before the attempt, President Joe Biden had told donors in widely publicized remarks that it was “time to put Trump in a bullseye,” which Biden later called a “mistake.”

Soon after, there was another attempt on Trump’s life on a Florida golf course; however, the assassin was apprehended before he was able to get a shot off.

With this in mind, the Comey post cannot be seen as an isolated incident. It represents a broader pattern of dangerous rhetoric directly targeting Trump, in which he is regularly portrayed not just as wrong but as an existential threat to democracy itself.

When Trump is compared to Hitler by prominent members of the Democratic Party, and his supporters to brownshirts or fascists, the implicit moral license is granted: any means of resistance becomes justifiable, even violence.

Democrats Crossed the Line Long Ago

Democrats crossed the line of acceptable political discourse long ago, and history makes clear that their so-called “resistance” rhetoric has become a catalyst for radicalization.

In 2017, Republican Rep. Steve Scalise was nearly killed by James T. Hodgkinson, a far-left Bernie Sanders supporter, who opened fire on members of Congress during a baseball practice. The shooter had a list of Republican lawmakers in his pocket and reportedly asked whether the players on the field were Democrats or Republicans before firing more than 100 rounds. Prior to the shooting, Hodgkinson posted on Facebook, “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.”

Despite the clear political motive, the media portrayed the attack as an isolated incident, while making the “right-wing” reaction to the shooting the main story, ignoring the clear connection to left-wing rhetorical radicalization.

In March of 2020, while the Supreme Court was hearing arguments pertaining to an abortion case, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke at an abortion rights rally outside the court. During the rally, Schumer threatened two of the court’s conservative justices, screaming into the microphone, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

After the leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022, left-wing protesters gathered outside the homes of conservative justices, in clear violation of federal law meant to protect judges from intimidation.

The volatile situation almost ended in bloodshed. However, law enforcement arrested a man outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home who was carrying a gun, zip ties, and burglary tools. He later admitted he planned to assassinate the justice, believing that he could “make the world a better place by killing him.”

Once again, the incident received minimal sustained media coverage and no calls from Democratic leaders for a national reckoning over left-wing incitement.

The pattern, cause, and effect are unmistakable. When prominent Democrats use extreme rhetoric portraying Trump and administration officials not just as wrong, but as an existential threat to American democracy, they are not engaging in spirited political opposition — they are laying the moral groundwork for increased radicalization and violence.

Comparing Trump to Hitler, branding his supporters as fascists, and depicting his presidency as a national emergency hellbent on dismantling democracy creates an atmosphere in which violence appears not only permissible but morally justified.

While James Comey defends his “86 47” post as an innocent mistake or misunderstanding, it aligns with a broader pattern of rhetoric developed over years of vilification by mainstream Democrats, shifting from political opposition to personal attacks and finally, to perilous provocation with real-world physical consequences.

Unlike political speech urging support for alternative policies or even political protests, this rhetoric demonizes and dehumanizes Trump alone as someone who must be eliminated — politically, legally, or through violent means. This is not just irresponsible, it’s deliberately incendiary. Unless this rhetoric is reined in, it will eventually 86 our nation.

Adam Johnston is a contributor to The Federalist whose work has been featured in The Blaze, WrongSpeak Publishing, and Man’s World Magazine. He is also the creator of conquesttheory.com, where he regularly writes about politics, history, philosophy, and technology. You can find him on X @ConquestTheory.