By Joshua Arnold

Is it too much to ask that politicians stop trying to get their opponents killed in the six weeks before the election? Only 10 days after the last attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life, high-ranking governing officials are spewing incendiary, inciteful rhetoric once again.

One assassination cycle has hardly concluded before violent, dehumanizing rhetoric began ramping up to provoke another attempt. A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted Ryan Wesley Routh on five counts, including for the attempted assassination of Trump at his golf course on September 15. According to court filings, Routh hid along the outer fence with his rifle barrel sticking through. When fired upon by Secret Service, he was seen fleeing in a vehicle and later arrested by the sheriff’s office in a neighboring county.

The indictment came late Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday, violent rhetoric once against descended with a vengeance — not that it ever truly stopped.

“Let’s extinguish him [Trump] for good,” declared U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo during an appearance on MSNBC. Raimondo technically appeared “in her personal capacity” because cabinet secretaries are not allowed to engage in politicking, but no one was fooled into thinking her appearance was unconnected from her high public office.

The declaration was obviously incendiary from the moment it was uttered. So provocative was the statement that MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski jumped in to help Raimondo moderate her statement. “And extinguish, you mean vote him out?” she suggested hopefully. “Yes, vote him out,” Raimondo replied.

On a moment’s reflection, both women would have realized that this statement was nonsense. It is impossible to “vote him out” because Trump does not currently hold any elected office. The campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris has tried to position their candidate as an outsider and Trump as an incumbent, but this is taking the charade a bit too far to believe.

Even the best speakers are liable to commit an occasional extemporaneous error. I note it merely to underscore that it was extemporaneous; Brzezinski and Raimondo were scrambling to modify an alarming remark, and their attempt at clarification was garbled.

Perhaps Raimondo didn’t mean to endorse political violence against Trump. Perhaps she originally meant “vote him out” or, as she later added, “banish him from American politics.” But what she said was, “let’s extinguish him for good.” This evokes an inherently intense — even violent — mental image. Your imagination may produce slightly different results, but I picture someone stamping out a brush fire, then dousing the embers with bucketloads of water. The unspecific phrase doesn’t explicitly call for Trump’s assassination, but it’s not difficult to see how someone might make that logical connection. After all, extinguishing a flame has been a poetic synonym for ending a life since at least the 8th century B.C. (see Isaiah 42:3).

Politicians are often skilled at using words that make people hear what they want them to say, even if that means different people take them to mean contradictory things. Vague rhetoric adjacent to violence could easily be heard as an endorsement of violence by those who want to hear that message. Right now, an alarming number of Americans are friendly to a message condoning political violence. A poll conducted after the second assassination attempt on Trump found that 28% of Democrats believe the U.S. would be better off if Trump were assassinated.

Trump’s political opponents are certainly aware of this dynamic. And, unless they want to be associated with inciting political violence, they should avoid crafting statements that could reasonably be interpreted as an endorsement of violence by those who want to hear it.

A classic tool of violent political rhetoric is dehumanizing language. If a politician can convince his audience that his enemy (or enemies) is (or are) less-than-human, it justifies the use of violence against them.

In another Wednesday interview, President Joe Biden appeared on the infamous talk-show “The View,” where co-host Whoopi Goldberg described Trump “like a bug. He just kept being there. He was like a bug right there,” she said, pointing to the desk. Goldberg waved her finger around while making buzzing noises to imitate a housefly that gets too close to your face.

So, the scene is set. A media personality has just described his political opponent as a “bug,” one who offended and repulsed simply by “being there” — by his very existence. The political atmosphere was already heavy with violent political rhetoric. How would Biden, a self-styled defender of democracy, respond?

Biden didn’t miss a beat. Before Goldberg had even finished her statement, Biden slammed his hand down on the table, pretending to squash the imaginary bug. So much for eschewing all political violence. The far-Left audience went wild with laughter and applause.

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.