8645

So apparently there's a freakout because some people--e.g. the loathsome James Comey--have been "tweeting" (or "graming," or "tokking" or whatever you crazy kids are inging these days), the numeral:

8645

Or, alternatively 8647...but he'll always be 45 to me....*

Now, this isn't hard to figure out. '86' is early-mid 20th century slang for get rid of. So, using my uncanny, even Sherlockian, powers of deduction,** I conclude that these folks intend to say "get rid of Trump."
   So far nothing in any way surprising or notable about this.

   They hate Trump. They want to get rid of him. That's what the message says. Case closed, my dear Watson...

 Except for NOW ENTER THE RED TEAM....

 They claim that '8645' (or '7') is old-school gangland slang for KILL 45 (or 7).

 Very serious tones were adopted! Pearls were clutched! Panties were bunched!

 IT'S A DEATH THREAT AGAINST POTUS!!!!

   "Huh," I thought. "86 can mean kill...but only as a specific type of getting rid of... So that interpretation is severely strained..."

   I'm not a big fan of the "woke right" meme/trope...but that right there does look like the kind of thing that might reasonably be described as woke right--the sloppy, free-associative interpretation straining for some vague link to a desired/pre-ordained target interpretation...chosen because it accords with the writer's politics...

Yep. That's the PC method alright.

Classic.

   Oh but then: I realized that maybe my entirely casual understanding of '86' is based on basically nothing other than Buggs Bunny cartoons from my kidhood.

   So I went to look up the definition.

   Not paying attention, I clicked on the Merriam-Webster link--which confirmed my intuitive understanding of  '86' (and added bunch of context about soda fountains and whatnot).

   Then, of course, I realized that I couldn't trust Merriam-Webster--they who alter their definitions to remain au courant and compliant with the ever-shifting winds of progressive Newspeak...having changed one usage note actually, no-kidding on the fly, in the middle of Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation hearings, in order to bring it into compliance with Stupidest United States Senator Mazie Hiorno's proclamations and make it seem that ACB had committed the terrible crime of not speaking exactly as the left wanted her to speak on that particular day. As I'm sure you recall, this burning civil rights dispute concerned the phrases 'sexual preference' and 'sexual orientation.' Because of course it did. ACB had used the former phrase. Hirono "corrected" her, informing her that the latter was "correct" and the former was...whatever. White supremacist. Intersectional. Cisheteronormative. Some Woke bullshit. At the time of the dispute, MW's usage notes indicated that "sexual preference" was preferred--or at least acceptable. I can't remember which. Immediately after the disagreement unfolded, MW changed the entry to back up their leftard heroine. (Then they actually pled, basically, scheduled maintenance...  I'm not kidding. They just happened to change their entry right after this dispute arose...and that revision just happened to support the same witless, totalitarian political faction MW always supports...

   Anyhoo, the point of this was that I can't trust MW. They may have eighty-sixed all the now-politically-incorrect parts of their entry on 'eighty-six'/'86'. I glanced around for any citations that might reveal revision dates, but no joy. I guess I could check the Wayback...but I didn't...

   I'm going to guess that there's no institutional shenanigans in this case, and provisionally conclude that the right is being a bunch of whiney little bitches.

   This is really a generic bit of internet stupidity--though the left, given its love of victimhood--tends to deploy it most. That is: pretending that non-death-threats are death threats. The internet loooves that one... But the lefties really love it.

   But anyway, this time it's the wingnuts, not the moonbats, who are full of shit.

   Kinda reminds me of back during the GWOT when "regime change" in Iraq was all the rage among the Bushies. Kerry commented that what we really needed was regime change at home...and the right went nuts, pretending that this was a call for violence. Stupid. I thought it was a pretty good line, actually.

   Anyway, here's just one example, Jim Geraghty from the usually-more-sober National Review.

* I'm being lazy with the single-quotes here, leaving it to your brain to automatically sort out whatever use-mention problems there might be here.
** This, notably, does seem to be mostly deduction, whereat--notoriously--most of Holmes's "deductions" are actually abductions (or inferences to the best explanation, or whatever flavor of explanatory inference you prefer).