Exploring the possibilities expressed in "Trump or Death" sign at Yankee Stadium

In case you missed it, a strange thing happened at Yankee Stadium in New York last week.

During the usual rendition of “God Bless America” as part of the seventh-inning stretch, a few fans draped a large banner from an upper deck that read, “Trump or Death.”

The red banner had the likeness of the former president and the dates 1776 and 2024 on it.

OK, I guess that 1776 was supposed to point out the first, and so far, only American Revolution.

But what does 2024 have to do with it? Somebody went through a lot of trouble, it seems, to memorialize a bunch of sloppy thinking.

The American Revolution determined this country’s freedom from a foreign power. The year 2024 will be a democratic exercise among American citizens to pick the next president.

The banner seemed to be advocating the idea that electing Trump again was somehow akin to the Continental Army under George Washington fighting to vanquish British rule. Like I said, sloppy thinking: National elections aren’t wars against foreign powers, they’re reaffirming exercises among the American people to arrive at a single common path.

Death shouldn’t be involved. And that’s my main point of confusion about the banner and its message: “Trump or Death.”

Death for whom?

Is this just some advance notice of a Jim Jones-styled mass suicide pact, where MAGA-hatted cult members — unable to accept another rebuke at the hands of a fair national election — all decide to kill themselves?

If this is the case, well, maybe you should try counting to 10 first. Or taking up yoga, instead. Mass suicide is really not necessary, fellas.

But OK, if that’s your plan, thanks for the info. Or as you guys like to say, “Thoughts and prayers.” (Side note: Drinking bleach, Trump’s untested COVID cure, would be a fitting way to go. Not a recommendation, just an observation.)

What I’m more concerned with is the likelihood that the word “death” is directed at others.

If the “Trump or death” banner refers to killing the Americans who didn’t vote for your guy — and you think this is a message that comports well with the song, “God Bless America” — then I think that becomes a bit, oh what’s the word … problematic.

We may have to have a discussion about this.

Starting here: The purpose of gun ownership enabled by the Second Amendment isn’t to give the losers in national elections a chance to shoot and kill enough voters to change the result.

So, if “Trump or Death” means you think you have a license to kill other Americans to change election results, please be more specific.

For starters, are you just planning to kill Democrats in a few swing states? Or are you doing the full North Korea?

To make this relevant to “God Bless America,” will you be killing other Americans “from the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans, white with foam?”

The Trump merchandise outfit that sells the "Trump or Death" flag is run by Dion Cini, a Trump fan who warns people not to read too much into it.

"I designed this flag as an homage to Patrick Henry's "Give me Liberty or give me Death" speech …" Cini posted on Twitter. "If you believe my flag to be more/less than a historical reference, is done so by your (uneducated) imagination."

I wonder if he means Mike Huckabee, who has taken the lead in imagining a literal Trump-or-death scenario.

Huckabee, a former governor and former unsuccessful presidential candidate himself, laid it out recently on his Trinity Broadcast Network talk show. Huckabee pitches his hourlong TV show as “a down-home slice of wholesome Americana in all of its patriotic, God-honoring, and family-friendly glory.”

Part of that family-friendly, God-loving glory was Huckabee imagining the thou-shalt-kill bloodbath in America if Trump doesn’t win next year’s presidential election.

More: If Donald Trump gets convicted, can we just lock him up inside Mar-a-Lago's tower?

If Trump loses while facing multiple criminal indictments, “it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets,” Huckabee predicted.

So, there’s little doubt what Huckabee would mean by the slogan “Trump or Death.”

If you can find any “wholesome Americana” in this, please let me know.

Frank Cerabino is a columnist at The Palm Beach Post, a part of the USA TODAY Florida Network.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: "Trump or Death" sign in Yankee Stadium a symptom of national fever