Cavalier with Death: How Political Bloodlust Went Mainstream

It frightens me when I see smiling faces flip into demonic scowls because one man’s name dared to be mentioned

I’ve been following politics for almost two decades and if there is one disturbing change that I’ve seen happen, it’s how cavalier people are about death.

Not only are they wishing death upon their political opposition, but they say it proudly in public without hesitation.

Worse, it’s seen as somewhat normal to engage in this form of verbal expression and death wish chants for another human being they’ll never meet and who has never harmed them directly.

I have a strong belief that you don’t celebrate people’s death because every loss of life is tragic. Even the heinous, I think it’s tragic that their life went in that direction to create the circumstance of their death.

I believe that life is precious, all life. Even that person that you hate, that you wish were dead, they have someone who loves them and will mourn their loss.

Plainly, I think it’s evil and what I’m witnessing is the normalization of an evil death wish culture. It’s a culture that has a reflex to dehumanize anyone who is positioned as an opponent and finds it fun to daydream about their enemy’s funerals.

Recently, Jimmy Kimmel made a pretty crass joke about Melania looking like an “expectant widow,” which many are interpreting as gleefulness for the idea of Trump’s death.

But I wish I could say that it was just Kimmel who plays with death; it’s happening all over. I won’t say that it’s completely normal but I no longer believe it’s fringe behavior.

Last year, I was around some older people at an event and they switched the topic onto Donald Trump. These were older women, old enough to be my grandmother, who transformed the conversation into bloodlust for the death of our president.

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The obsession with a single man has pushed them into making him into a demonic figure who is not deserving of empathy or air to breathe. The way they were talking was like he was a “thing” that needed to be eradicated instead of a person they simply disagree with.

What they don’t realize is that this is the line of thinking that leads to the rationalization of murder and atrocities.

You just need to remove their personhood and reduce their humanity into them being a walking bag of bones that could easily be disposed of with enough ammunition and will.

Listening to these kind older women sounded like the precursor to a massacre and stunned me into silence. They weren’t whispering their death fantasies to avoid public shame; they were speaking loudly and laughing at the idea of our president being “taken out.”

It was the cavalier nature of wanting someone to put him down for good. It was a bloodlust conversation that came from the mouths of inconspicuous senior citizens.

But they aren’t alone and they’re not the first. There has been an increasing comfort with the idea of killing political opponents and it has created a culture that finds no shame in this thinking.

Jimmy Kimmel and other media elites have spent many years dehumanizing Donald Trump because it’s profitable.

The jokes are admissions of a deeper desire and there would not have been a tear shed if Trump’s head hadn’t turned when standing on stage in Butler, PA.

Making people scared keeps their attention. If you scare them long enough, you’ll make them suffer with paranoia. And why not make money off the man you hate the most?

They’ll use words like “existential threat” to indicate that one more day with him in charge only brings us one day closer to our entire civilization coming to an end. In their minds, ending the threat saves our society, or in their words, saves our democracy.

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So to be clear: I would have an issue if the most prominent Republicans and right-wing media were doing the same thing. However, this type of thing is incredibly rare on the right and applies to people who are generally unstable (I’ve met these people in person too).

After the Butler assassination attempt, I wrote for Newsweek how Democrats aren’t wishing for Trump’s death. Meaning, the majority of Democrat voters don’t wish for his death. I believed at the time that much of what we are seeing is fringe because I refused to believe that half of our voting population is filled with bloodlust.

However, I no longer believe it’s fringe. It’s now an acceptable aspect of left-wing culture.

What scares me is that I’m watching people who are otherwise sane, rational, and intelligent dive down this deep dark pit with pride. It frightens me when I see smiling faces flip into demonic scowls because one man’s name dared to be mentioned.

The hatred is palpable and infectious. Nothing good comes from this level of cavalier attitude towards death.