The audience for conservative media imbibes the rhetoric of violence every day.
Like almost everything DeSantis says and does as a candidate, the comment was uttered with one eye on Donald Trump. In the Trump era, that kind of statement is no longer surprising. Invocations of violence — both metaphorical and literal — have become so common among Republican politicians that DeSantis is only catching up to what’s going on around him.
The rhetoric of the contemporary right is saturated with fantasies of violence against perceived enemies. While most of it remains in the realm of fantasy, we should never be surprised when it erupts into reality. It has before, and it will again.
Such rhetoric began with Trump; far-right movements the world over have long valorized violence against foreigners, racial and ethnic out-groups and political opponents. But in modern American politics, Trump took it from the fringe to the mainstream, including the Republican elite.