“The Republican presidential primary campaign is heavy on bloodlust,” warns NBC News in a headline. Gee, that does sound bad.

Until you read the story, that is. Then you realize that “bloodlust” is actually an appeal for restoring Rule of Law.

Obviously, NBC is a key outlet for Democrat propaganda, and anyone reading or watching its “news” should beware of the old saying, “garbage in, garbage out.”

The story starts out as alarmist as you’d expect: “The candidates have talked about heads on stakes, slit throats and executions,” the subheader reads, followed by the first sentence that says, “Republican presidential hopefuls are out for blood — literally.” To supposedly prove this point, the quartet of scribes point to examples of Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy saying tough things about serious problems confronting our nation.

Trump talked about shooting shoplifters and executing child traffickers, and in NBC’s mendacious framing, “recently lamented that former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley couldn’t be put to death for assuaging China’s concerns following the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol.” Trump’s actual point was the treason is serious.

DeSantis warned that drug smugglers from Mexican cartels could end up “stone cold dead.” He has also stiffened the death penalty in Florida and, NBC says, “backed legislation offering immunity to people who run over protesters with their vehicles.” That, of course, is not a license to kill as you might assume from NBC, but putting some responsibility on protesters who illegally block public streets. He also promised to “start slitting throats” of federal bureaucrats “on Day 1” — an obvious figure of speech for firing deep state actors.

Haley’s offense was also talking tough on the border, promising to “eliminate” drug cartels “just like we eliminated ISIS.” Her other one was to proclaim after October 7 that Israel should “finish the job once and for all with these butchers, Hamas.”

Even the more dovish Ramaswamy got an implied scolding for saying he’d “love nothing more than for the IDF to put the heads of the top 100 Hamas leaders on stakes and line them up on the Israel-Gaza border.”

Perhaps these candidates would do better to tone it down. It’s perfectly possible to speak about securing the border, fighting crime, and enacting foreign policy without sounding like you’re reading the script of a war movie. NBC isn’t the only outlet to decry “bloodlust” among Republicans — Politico did so more than a year ago, and the rabidly anti-Trump and supposedly conservative team at The Bulwark did so earlier this year.

On the other hand, tough times call for tough talk and real action.

Joe Biden’s cognitive disabilities and total supplication to the radical Left have created a humanitarian crisis on our southern border and an alarming threat to our children from sexual groomers, as well as wars erupting around the world. Deep state figures undermined President Trump for four years, and Milley was at best a fellow traveler with them. It’s not unreasonable to promise that figurative heads will roll under the next Republican administration.

Most voters are angry these days, too, about a great many things, and candidates are merely reflecting that.

On the Left, they’re angry about the so-called “insurrection.” Hillary Clinton called for “deprogramming” Trump fans. Joe Biden yelled a speech in front of that Nazi-like backdrop. To those of us who know the history of totalitarian regimes reeducating citizens or enforcing ideological “purity,” those things invoke an awful lot of bloody imagery.

Leftists are also rabidly pro-abortion, marching all over the country demanding a “right” enjoyed in only six other countries in the world — to end the life of a child all the way through pregnancy. We might call that bloodlust.

On the Right, people are furious about how Democrats destroyed the integrity of elections. They spent years rejecting any Republican victory as illegitimate, and then pounced with the idiotic “election denier” rhetoric the moment Republicans had a problem with an election compromised by bulk-mail ballots.

Most Americans are appalled that our southern border is nonexistent while millions of people pour across, many with evil intent, including drugs that kill tens of thousands of Americans every year. Peaceful citizens are alarmed by the rampant crime destroying our cities.

Of course some folks are going to speak in harsh terms about such things.

For the entirety of his lengthy career, Biden has constantly used the word “literally” when he means “figuratively,” so maybe some of these media folks are simply as confused as he is. But most competent adults know that serious problems require serious solutions, and sometimes that means using intense language to convey the point. Calling it “bloodlust” arguably discredits the media, not the candidates.