IF YOU WANT A CODEWORD FOR "KILL," REPUBLICANS HAVE A COUPLE FOR YOU

Acting Attoney General Todd Blanche knows that this 2025 James Comey Instagram post was not code for "Kill Donald Trump":

In the restaurant and bar trade, "86" means "stop taking orders for this item, because we're out of it." It also means "throw the bum out." Comey, like millions of other Americans, wants Donald Trump removed from office. But Blanche knows that credulous Republican rubes -- including Trump himself -- will believe that Comey threatened the president with death.

Republican attacks on their critics are often projection, and this is no exception, because Republicans actually do have a couple of codewords for "kill" that they use regularly. The words are "treason" and "traitor."

Republicans have begun using these words more and more often because of the deliciously bloodthirsty implication: If you're a traitor, Our God Emperor Trump gets to kill you.

Yesterday, Media Matters posted this:

In the last month, right-wing media figures have labeled a wide range of people and entities they associate with the Democratic Party — from former President Barack Obama to mainstream media figures and critics of the Iran War — as “traitors,” in some cases explicitly demanding they be tried for treason and put to death....

* Fox host Will Cain said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) criticizing Trump’s “bungled mismanagement” of the Iran war “is nothing short of treasonous." Cain opened the segment by telling viewers, “As we’re in a high-stakes moment overseas, some Democrats sound like they’re not on team America.” He also called Murphy a “traitor” for making a sarcastic social media post about the war: “Chris Murphy responding to a post about Iran's shadow fleet running a blockade. He responded with one word: ‘awesome.’ That post triggered immediate backlash, as it should. Critics calling him, as they should, a traitor.” [Fox News, The Will Cain Show, 4/21/26]

* Newsmax’s Carl Higbie said Murphy “should be expelled from the Senate and charged with treason.” Higbie claimed that “in this case, like we have a U.S. senator ... rooting for the enemy of the country he's supposed to represent.” [Newsmax, Carl Higbie Frontline, 4/22/26]

* Newsmax guest Zuhdi Jasser called Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) a traitor and enemy of the state for opposing war in Iran. Jasser: “To see traitors like Ilhan Omar talk about our troops the way she does and Israel's moral force the way she does, these are enemies of the state. They’re part of the Marxist-jihadist global axis, if you will.” [Newsmax, Sunday Agenda, 3/1/26]

The post continues with nine more examples. Those accused of treason include Barack Obama, Tim Walz, and the news media.

Only one of the commentators mentions death as a punishment for traitors, but there's no need to make this explicit: the audience for this content knows that convicted traitors can be executed, and drools at the thought of Democrats being executed.

And sometimes Republicans, particularly the president, don't even bother to leave the death part implicit:

Literally every time a Republican says that a political opponent committed treason or is a traitor, the real message is this: It appears that the government ought to kill this opponent. In fact, the government might have have a moral obligation to kill this opponent. Every regular consumer of right-wing media knows this, and finds these messages delightful and uplifting. Keep this in mind whenever you hear a Republican using these words. It's a call for (state) violence.