Politics > Republicans

The Left's Rhetoric of Violence Against Republican Presidents

Our intellectual and academic culture is dangerously creating violent pro-assassination rhetoric that is creating this cultish desire to kill President Trump.

Ben Voth | April 27, 2026

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:

These usages occurred within the first six months of their respective presidencies according to the Lexis-Nexis database. Republican Presidents who were assassinated or subjected to attempted assassination include: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. Ironically, the most well-known presidential assassination was certainly that of John F. Kennedy, a Democrat president killed by a sniper assassin. The rhetoric surrounding this 1963 event provides insight into the enduring anti-Republican ethic of the American public sphere. Lee Harvey Oswald almost certainly killed President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. One of the most treasured canards of American history is a vast array of conspiracy theories that seek to exonerate Oswald in favor of LBJ, George Bush Sr., the CIA, the Mob, and so many others. Prior to killing Kennedy, Oswald attempted to kill General Edwin Walker in Dallas. Walker was an iconic conservative political figure in the United States. Oswald was a loyal Marxist seeking to make powerful anti-American and anti-capitalist statements of political assassination. The recent release of files about Oswald show primarily that the government was aware of Oswald’s efforts to meet Soviet officials in places such as Mexico City in order to gain their approval for the assassination of Kennedy. Because he was a radical Left assassin, our public intellectual culture refuses to blame him for his repeated acts of violence. On the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, the Dallas Morning News ran articles continuing to argue that the conservative Hunt family by running conservative political ads in Dallas area media criticizing President Kennedy, they created conditions ripe for encouraging Kennedy’s assassination on that fateful day in November 1963. There is no reasonable basis for that claim and quite the opposite is true with regard to Oswald’s motives that day.

Our intellectual and academic culture is dangerously creating violent pro-assassination rhetoric that is creating this cultish desire to kill President Trump. It is not only dangerous to the United States but also the Democrat Party that offers itself as the primary point of peaceful opposition to President Trump. Revered Democrat strategist James Carville recent commended his own ‘trump derangement syndrome,’: "I hate the motherf-----. And you know what? I don't want to get rid of it [TDS]. I don't want to get better. I want to get worse. I want to hate him more." "I pray to God in heaven, God, reign the righteous reign of Trump Derangement Syndrome on me," he continued. "Pray for me, Lord. I'm your vessel on this earth. Pray for the people that listen to this. We want more. We want to hate the son of a b---- so much that we can't see straight.” Carville’s incendiary rhetoric is not unrelated to the manifesto of the most recent shooter: “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.” Those salacious allegations are common internet talking points for individuals continually challenging one another to ‘do something about Trump.’ The burning of Democrat Josh Shapiro’s home in Pennsylvania is one of a multitude of violent acts instigated by  a growing approval of anti-Republican rhetoric that consumes even Democrat idealists. The time is now for American and global society to embrace debate and reason. That requires public outcry about these calls for assassination.

Dr. Ben Voth is professor of rhetoric and director of debate at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He is the author of several academic books regarding political communication, presidential rhetoric, and genocide.

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