Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

In the final In an election season full of ugly moments, from the racist and vulgar to the sexist and crude, Donald Trump did on Thursday what he always does: outdo himself.

“Let’s put them there with a gun that shoots at them with nine barrels,” Trump said at an event with Tucker Carlson. “Okay, let’s see what she thinks. You know when the guns are pointed at their faces.”

The subject of that blistering comment was Liz Cheney, perhaps the most prominent Republican to support Trump’s Democratic opponent Kamala Harris, and Trump made the statement amid endless evidence of the dangers he poses should he return to the White House. In this case, Trump criticized Cheney as a “radical warmonger” and suggested she should get a taste of the fight. But this use of such emotive images comes as he continues to threaten to prosecute his perceived enemies. This summer, he promoted a social media post calling for Cheney to be tried in a military court on treason charges.

The Harris campaign and other Trump critics incorrectly characterized Trump’s comment as a call to put Cheney in front of a firing squad.

“This is how dictators destroy free nations,” Cheney responded to “I want to be a tyrant.”

Meanwhile, mainstream news outlets are still arguing over whether President Joe Biden may have called Trump’s supporters “trash” in response to a comedian who recently called Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash” at a Trump rally. There was further controversy this morning over a report that the White House may have altered a transcript of Biden’s “garbage” digs. Given that Trump has often dehumanized and demonized his political opponents and their supporters by calling them “scum,” attention to Biden’s remark — which he subsequently clarified — is misplaced.

Trump’s threatening language — a constant for nearly a decade — rarely attracts the attention that Garbage Gate has received. Calling this imbalance a typical two-sidedness is not enough to adequately represent the failure of the media in 2024.

We’re all a little desensitized. But the use of such violent rhetoric by vile men near the White House should still shock us. Everything else is garbage.