The push alert everyone is dying to get

Search “dead” on any major social media platform right now, especially the text-based ones, and you’ll see it. There’s a fervor around the subject that can’t be contained or ignored. Lots of people suspect that the president is in ill health, and they are brimming with excitement to hear the news that he has died. Here’s just one example: On X (formerly Twitter), a teenager from New Zealand with 500 followers posted a GIF of Niall Horan (of One Direction fame) hitting the red button on the singing competition series The Voice (which signals endorsing a contestant) with the caption “ME LIKING EVERY TRUMP IS DEAD TWEET.” The post has over 235,000 likes and more than 5 million views.

On Threads, where tens of thousands of liberals have decamped in protest of Elon Musk turning Twitter into an explicitly pro-Donald Trump platform, Trump’s mortality is the hottest topic. “I do think it would be funny if we just decided that Trump is dead and continued to maintain that he is dead despite any and all evidence to the contrary, up and including to him actively trying to talk to us,” posted programmer Jenna Inouye, to over 20,000 likes. Another popular Threads post from an artist and activist said, “Please stop spreading rumors about Trump being dead. It’s really not okay… people’s feelings, hopes, and dreams are at stake here.”

This fantasy cause célèbre is nothing new, especially on Twitter and its derivative platforms. Over the past few years, it has become far less taboo to publicly relish the deaths of state leaders like Elizabeth II and Henry Kissinger, both of whom were the subjects of listicles ranking funniest tweets and memes about their demise. The conspiracy theories, pseudo-forensic investigations, and betting jargon accompanying the current wave of eager “Trump is dying” sentiment have also become commonplace, even if the subject isn’t an authoritarian ruler—just over a year ago, people were doing the same thing to Kate Middleton.

There’s already a growing chorus of hypocritical hand-wringing from those who are trying to shame the left for doing a far tamer version of what conservatives actively heaped onto Joe Biden and other Democrats for the past five years—sometimes with real, deadly consequences. I’m sure there will be more false equivocating to come. It can seem fair to just point to all of this and claim that everyone, regardless of political inclination, is becoming meaner and more conspiratorial and bloodthirsty. But the urgent reality is that all of these social media posts aside, the Trump administration is lathering its hands with the real blood of Americans.

Subscribe to Spitfire News to read the rest.