RUTHFULLY YOURS

Never in my 53 years have I seen people so casually and cavalierly advocate the murder of the president of the United States. Trump haters are eager to make assassination great again.

Such comments are not just muttered by demented vagrants as they relax on subway grates. Those who say such things too often are prominent, powerful people with platforms from which they publically spew their potentially lethal venom.

Calvin Broadus, Jr., alias Snoop Dogg, recently released a music video for a rap song called “Lavender” in which he aims a handgun right at the skull of a clown dressed as President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Dogg — who pled no contest to felony gun possession in April 2007 — pulls the revolver’s trigger. Out pops a red and white flag that reads: “Bang.”

Hilarious.

Imagine the national collapse that would have ensued if, say, a country-music star released a video in which he leveled a shotgun at an Obama-like clown, only to have sawdust fly from the barrel.

In response to muted criticism of Mr. Dogg’s video, rapper Clifford Joseph Harris Jr., a.k.a. T.I., called Trump a “F***ing Tangerine Tanned Muskrat scrotum skin, Lacefront Possum fur Wig wearing, Alternative fact, Atomic Dog diarrhea face a** man!!!!”

Also from the relentlessly tasteful world of rap “music,” Big Sean’s freestyle number contributes this to the national debate:

I know Jay proud of me, he put this ’round my neck/ And I might just kill ISIS with the same icepick/ That I murder Donald Trump in the same night with.

Madonna, the global pop star whose albums have sold 306 million copies, erupted at the January 21 Women’s March in Washington, D.C.: “Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.”

Meanwhile, Adam Pally, star of Fox TV’s Making History, told TMZ that if he could travel through time and spend an hour with anyone, “I’d have to kill Trump or Hitler.”

Soon after Trump was elected, British journalist Monisha Rajesh remarked, “It’s about time for a presidential assassination.”

Matt Harrigan former CEO of PacketSled, a San Diego-based cybersecurity company, was eerily specific about his desire to whack Trump.

“I’m going to kill the president. Elect,” Harrigan posted on Facebook last November. He added that he was “getting a sniper rifle and perching myself where it counts. Find a bedroom in the whitehouse that suits you m*****fucker. I’ll find you.”

Two days after Reddit users noticed Harrigan’s vicious, error-filled death threats, PacketSled’s board of directors accepted his resignation.

None of this is cute or charming. The Secret Service should investigate all such episodes, including the Trump haters who have roped even America’s kids into their wicked schemes.

As the East Orlando Post reported, a University of Central Florida group called Knights for Socialism staged an event last month at which it encouraged visiting grammar-school students to use a baseball bat to smash piñatas bearing photos of Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and presidential adviser Steve Bannon.

“Come beat Jeff Sessions’s face in,” said one organizer. “It’s free.”

On a video of the gathering captured by UCF College Republican Douglas Mactye, a little boy asks: “Can I kill Donald Trump?”

Peaceful protest is among the things that make America great. But no facet of the First Amendment shields those who promote the assassination of the President of the United States.

With millions of Americans in a state of perpetual rage, it takes just one deranged leftist to put Donald J. Trump in his crosshairs and pull the trigger. This is especially worrisome given the three security breaches at the White House just this month. In one incident, Jonathan Tran, 26, scaled three barriers and then spent 16 minutes strolling the grounds of the executive mansion while Trump was inside.

A homicide-driven state funeral for President Trump would be as ugly as political resistance gets. And the saddest fact is that too many leftists would greet such a tragedy with high-fives.

— Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor and a contributing editor of National Review Online. William de Wolff provided research for this opinion piece.