With now the third serious assassination attempt against President Trump on the books, it is an important juncture to examine the intellectual gleischaltung that encourages American society and global society to view Republican Presidents as the height of all evil. More than Kim Jong Un of North Korea, more than Vladimir Putin of Russia, more than Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, more than Chairman Xi of China, Republican Presidents are rhetorically imbued with intrinsic evil that requires all available means of persuasion — including assassination. Since the assassination of Lincoln, the press and academic culture have worked together to create a sense of moral purpose in killing Republican presidents. On July 11, 2007, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Betty Williams gave the keynote speech to the International Women’s Peace Conference in Dallas, Texas, and said (to laughter and applause from the audience):“I mean right now, I could kill George Bush, no problem. No, I don’t mean that. I mean — how could you nonviolently kill somebody? I would love to be able to do that.” As a Republican President, George W. Bush was subjected to a media and academic character assassination regimen that drove his approval into the 20s before he left office in 2009. A Methodist minister, Charles Moore hated President Bush so much that he immolated himself at Grand Saline, Texas in 2014. He expressed written regret that he lacked the courage to burn himself alive on the campus of SMU where George W. Bush’s Presidential library is located. In an academic study I conducted on journalistic usage of the word “kill” and its derivates within the same sentence of Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump, I found this data:
Bush in 2001: 1,280
Obama in 2009: 2,608
Trump in 2017: 7,890
Hellbound and Down 