The Right's Outrage Machine Takes No Beach Days
Republicans want us to believe James Comey is plotting assassination via Instagram shells.
Last Thursday, former FBI Director James Comey posted a photo of seashells arranged to spell "86 47" on Instagram, and within minutes, the right-wing outrage industrial complex kicked into overdrive, with Republicans across the spectrum pretending to believe this was somehow a literal assassination plot against our 47th president. Because that's entirely plausible, right? A former FBI director would naturally use Instagram — the same platform where people post their brunch photos and cat videos — to openly call for political violence.
This manufactured controversy immediately took me back to my days at Media Matters, where part of my job involved documenting and debunking these exact kinds of faux outrages. Every morning, I'd wade through right-wing media to figure out what conservatives were pretending to be upset about that day. The pattern was always the same: take a Democrat's statement, strip it of all context and reasonable interpretation, then breathlessly claim it was a call to violence or some other nefarious act.
Remember when former Attorney General Eric Holder used the Michelle Obama line "when they go low, we go high" but added his own spin: "when they go low, we kick them"? Right-wing media outlets immediately pretended to believe Holder was advocating for literal physical violence against conservatives. Never mind that Holder explicitly said in the very same speech, "I don't mean we do anything inappropriate, we don't do anything illegal," and clarified he was speaking metaphorically about being more competitive politically. Those clarifications were conveniently ignored as conservatives clutched their pearls in performative horror.
Or how about when Joe Biden, during a 2019 speech, talked about the need for "a physical revolution" to deal with Republicans? Except he didn't. What Biden actually said was that if Republicans refused to work with Democrats, voters would need to "beat them" electorally. When asked if that meant a physical revolution, Biden explicitly rejected that interpretation, saying "I'm not talking about a physical revolution... I'm talking about voting them out." Yet right-wing media ran with the deliberately distorted narrative anyway.
This selective and dishonest framing of Democrats' comments as calls to violence has been so routine that Trump's own legal team used the tactic to defend him against impeachment charges related to the January 6th Capitol riot. They tried to equate Trump's actual incitement with Democrats' metaphorical political language, using deceptively edited videos to make their case.
Fast forward to 2025, and the playbook remains unchanged. Let's run through some of this week's greatest hits in the Seashell Saga:
Donald Trump Jr. led the charge, posting in a tweet, "Just James Comey casually calling for my dad to be murdered. This is who the Dem-Media worships. Demented!!!!" Yes, super casual assassination planning via beach photography — the preferred method of spies and hitmen everywhere.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem dramatically announced, "Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump." She added that DHS and the Secret Service were "investigating this threat," because nothing says "appropriate use of federal resources" like a full investigation into seashell arrangements.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard took things to a new level of absurdity on Fox News, declaring that Comey should be "put behind bars for this." She elaborated on Twitter that "Comey just issued a call to action to murder the President of the United States...he knew exactly what he was doing and must be held accountable."
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson joined in with, "President Trump has already survived TWO assassination attempts...Comey is either threatening to kill Donald Trump or suggesting someone should. This is as outrageous as it is dangerous." I'm not sure what's more alarming — the fact that Johnson genuinely seems to believe this, or that he wants us to think he does.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, never one to miss an opportunity to feed conspiracy theories, demanded to know, "How many times are Democrats going to try to assassinate President Trump???" Not to be outdone, Rep. Tim Burchett offered his nuanced legal analysis in just two words: "Arrest Comey."
Rep. Andy Ogles apparently thought this was the perfect moment to deploy some false equivalence: "The Left spent years claiming Republicans were guilty of 'stochastic terrorism'…Now, a former FBI Director appears to openly endorse assassinating the President — and they say nothing." The irony of this statement seems completely lost on him.
White House spokesperson Taylor Budowich gravely informed us that Comey's beach photo "can clearly be interpreted as 'a hit' on the sitting President of the United States," calling it "deeply concerning to all of us" and assuring everyone it was "being taken seriously." One can only imagine the emergency National Security Council meetings about dangerous seashell formations.
Trump campaign strategist Chris LaCivita took a more direct approach, suggesting, "I'd raid his f***ing house." Because nothing says "measured response" like proposing an FBI raid over Instagram shells.
Even Rep. Mike Lawler got in on the action, insisting Comey should be formally investigated by the Secret Service and FBI.
For context (because that still matters), "86" originated about a century ago as soda fountain shorthand for "we are out of," and later expanded in restaurant industry usage to mean "remove from the menu" or "eject someone from an establishment." As Benjamin Dreyer explains in his detailed etymology, the term has evolved over time with multiple meanings, though its most common usage remains non-violent. Importantly, Merriam-Webster doesn't even include any violent definition in their official entry. And let's not forget that conservatives had zero problem understanding the non-violent meaning of "86 46" during Biden's presidency — it was printed on t-shirts, bumper stickers, and coffee mugs sold by right-wing retailers without anyone claiming it was a death threat. In fact, right-wing provocateur Jack Posobiec, who's now demanding Comey's arrest, himself tweeted "86 46" in January 2022. But don't let facts and consistent standards get in the way of a good faux outrage cycle.
Comey quickly deleted the post and explained he had "posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message." He added that he "didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down."
Look, I have no particular love for James Comey. His letter about Hillary Clinton's emails days before the 2016 election likely contributed to Trump's victory. But the idea that a former FBI Director would publicly post an assassination threat on Instagram is just ridiculous.
What's particularly galling about this whole charade is how these same Republicans have spent years dismissing concerns about Trump's actual violent rhetoric. When Trump suggested that "Second Amendment people" could do something about Hillary Clinton if she won, or when he told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by," or when he said Mark Milley deserved the "death penalty" for his calls to China — those were all just jokes or hyperbole or taken out of context, according to his defenders. But seashells on a beach? That's clearly a call for murder!
The double standard would be comical if it weren't so cynical. When Democrats use metaphorical language about "fighting" or "battling" in a political context — standard political rhetoric used by everyone, everywhere, forever — it's framed as literal incitement. But when a Republican explicitly calls for violence, it's just colorful language.
This level of deliberate obtuseness and bad-faith interpretation would be almost impressive if it weren't so exhausting. The Great Seashell Panic perfectly illustrates how the right-wing outrage machine operates—take something innocuous, strip away all context and reasonable interpretation, claim it's an existential threat, demand consequences, and then use it to feed the grievance industrial complex.
Feeding the grievance-industrial complex is only one goal. Giving themselves an excuse for the actual violence and imprisonment of political rivals they’ve been openly and explicitly calling for for 10 years is the other goal.
Remember that the day before the Nazis invaded Poland, they took a bunch of convicts, dressed them in German and Polish military uniforms, shot them and left their bodies near the border. Because it was important to say they were just protecting themselves against Polish aggression. Did I just Go There? Yes. Yes I did.
Anyway, I know what my sign at the next demonstration is going to say.
"…those were all just jokes or hyperbole or taken out of context, according to his defenders. But seashells on a beach? That's clearly a call for murder!"
One thing we fail to acknowledge in these instances is that, as usual, every accusation is a confession from the right. I think one of the reasons the right gets so twisted up in finding and calling out the "hidden messages" and "calls to action" from random statements important people on the left make is precisely because they couch their own calls to action and violent rhetoric in dog whistles, "jokes", "hyperbole", or "it's just a metaphor" for the sake of plausible deniability, and so they assume that their opponents are too.