WEST LEBANON — Thought to have originated in the 20th century as diner shorthand to denote that the kitchen had run out of a menu item or ingredient, the expression “86” is commonly used as a slang term meaning to eject or ban.
But the term’s less-used definition, “to kill,” has gained new traction after Trump alleged that former FBI director James Comey was calling for the president’s assassination after he posted a photo of sea shells arranged to spell “86 47” on social media in May. The number “47” was interpreted as a reference to Trump, the 47th president.
“It’s widely understood by some if you search the internet that it means to ‘assassinate’,” former New Hampshire Sen. Jim Rubens, R-Hanover, said of the expression in an interview on Monday.
Rubens raised concerns about a banner on Trues Brook Road in West Lebanon bearing the term “86 47” in a recent email to the Valley News.
“This sign dances dangerously along the legal edges of incitement to violence,” he wrote.
The sign is part of a collection of banners that Rick Aldrich, who spent about a decade working in advertising at the Valley News, set up at the edge of his lawn a couple months ago to express his opposition to the Trump administration.
One set of large blue banners reads “Dump Trump,” while another says “F–k Trump” with an American flag slotted in between the “F” and “K.”
Rubens’ concerns speak to a broader anxiety and crackdown on political speech in the aftermath of the assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot while he was addressing students at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10.
In the days since the assassination, over 30 university faculty members, school teachers and other personnel have been suspended or otherwise investigated for public comments about Kirk’s death that were deemed inappropriate by the institutions that employed them.
In New Hampshire, one teacher at Manchester Memorial High School and another at Timberlane Regional High School in Plaistow have been placed on paid leave as of Tuesday for comments and social media posts that either condoned or made light of Kirk’s death.
ABC announced on Wednesday that it was suspending Jimmy Kimmel’s late night talk show hours after Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, threatened to act against the network following Kimmel’s on-air remarks that Trump’s supporters were trying to “score political points” off of the assassination.
In his email, Rubens wrote that “given last week’s political assassination” Aldrich’s banner constitutes “a news item.”
Conrad Schoeffter, vice chairman of the Republican party of Sullivan and Cheshire counties, flagged the banner to Rubens. The vice chairman received a photo of the banner from another source.
Eye-catching and brash, Aldrich’s signs resemble many of the pro-Trump banners that have cropped up across the country since the lead up to the president’s first term in office in 2016.
While signage in favor of the left typically uses a fairly uniform aesthetic, the iconography of the right orients more towards folk art, said Dartmouth professor and journalist Jeff Sharlet, who’s written extensively about the rise of the religious right.
He noted that banners such as Aldrich’s, which employ the same inflammatory tone as pro-Trump signage, project the message that “You can say it, so I can say it too.”
Aldrich said it hadn’t occurred to him that his banners mimicked the style of pro-Trump signs when he purchased them online.
Like Comey, he also said he wasn’t aware that the term “86” had violent connotations. Trump “doesn’t deserve to die,” he said.
For him, the sign was an expression of free speech and a symbol of his disdain for Trump, whom he considers to be misogynistic, arrogant and narcissistic.
“If you don’t express yourself, then you’re not worth much,” he said.
But Aldrich’s intent had little bearing on Rubens’ interpretation of the sign.
People are “within their rights to advocate for the election of another president,” he said, but “don’t incite violence.”
He argued that people are more easily inspired to act violently since the rise of the internet.
“This is not about Trump, this is about the American psyche,” he said.
Canaan resident Robert Labine, whose mother, Thelma Mossey, lives down the road from Aldrich, said the sign’s messaging is “something that shouldn’t be shared.”
“Keep it to yourself,” he said from a seat on Mossey’s porch where he relaxed with his mother and his wife, Cindy Labine.
Craig Stockwell, who lives a few doors down from Aldrich, didn’t share Labine’s fervent reaction.
Another house on the street had recently flown several Trump flags, so Aldrich’s banners weren’t so shocking.
“Everybody has the right to free speech,” Stockwell said.
While Labine and Rubens attributed the surge in politically motivated violence to the internet’s vast and relentless reach, Sharlet noted that such acts have been on the rise since Trump’s first term.
The president’s “rhetorical language” has opened the door for others to employ threatening language that hides beneath the veil of plausible deniability, he said.
“If you want these far-right politics to end, you can’t emulate them,” he said. “Every day build the democracy you want to live in. Simple as that.”
