Should Trump protesters in Wichita be arrested for saying 86 47? | Opinion
Right wingers of Wichita want protesters arrested for chanting “86 47” on Saturday.
In a related story, right wingers of Wichita have abandoned any pretense of respect for the United States Constitution.
The calls for the arrest of protesters surfaced on Facebook and X over the holiday weekend when two local right-wing talk radio hosts — both Republican Party officers — posted a poorly made video of protesters who gather on Saturday afternoons at the corner of Broadway and Douglas. It spread out nationwide with the help of the online network of MAGA propagandists.
John Whitmer, chairman of the Sedgwick County Republican Party and one of the two local talk radio hosts who posted the disorientingly weird video, disclosed on his Sunday night radio show that it was made by Hunter Larkin, the disgraced ex-mayor of Goddard, best known for shady dealings with developers, a DUI conviction and rampant cronyism that allowed him to essentially take over the city government in 2023.
It’s not the first time this kind of thing has come up with the downtown Wichita protests. A couple of weeks ago, these same folks had their knickers in a knot after one protester showed up with a Styrofoam wig head with a Donald Trump mask and fake blood on it.
Saturday’s protest chant of “86 47” escalated to calls for arresting the protesters en masse for ostensibly threatening the assassination of the president.
They did nothing of the sort.
The term “86” is a common one in the food and beverage service industry. Its primary meaning is to take something off the menu.
I was introduced to this term in 1978, when I worked in an Italian restaurant as a high school senior, as in “86 the Hawaiian pizza tonight, the pineapple went bad.”
The term is also used — and this is the sense in which it’s directed at Trump — as a code for ejecting an obnoxious customer who’s causing trouble.
Those have been the commonly used, commonly accepted meanings of the term “86” for more than a century.
But a couple of weeks ago, the Trump Administration decided that “86” is a death threat, when former FBI director James Comey posted a picture on Instagram of some seashells on a beach arranged to spell “86 47” (Trump is both the 45th and 47th president).
“Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem thundered on X. “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”
The appropriate response would be laughter at an administration that freaks out whenever someone says they ought to be kicked out of office because they’re really bad at their jobs.
Also, it’s worth noting that you never heard a peep out of these people when their side was selling “86 46” T-shirts, stickers, hats and garden flags on Amazon. It’s a death threat when directed at Trump, but just good fun when targeting Joe Biden.
I can only surmise that it’s coming as a huge surprise to millions of bouncers, bartenders and wait staff across the country, that when the boss told them to 86 a customer from the establishment, they weren’t just supposed to show them to the door, they were actually supposed to take them out back and kill them.
That’s how ridiculous this is.
But the motto of Wichita’s far-right Republican leaders and local officials is “Never let a good hysteria go to waste.” Here’s a sampling from the weekend:
▪ Andy Hooser, vice-chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, who bills himself as “The Voice of Reason” on KQAM-AM radio, posted the video with this message: “It keeps getting worse in Wichita. I think arrests need to be made for violence and threats.”
▪ Sedgwick County District Court Judge Kevin Mark Smith: “Use Saturdays to do work on our real estate properties and cringe when I drive on Broadway past the protestors to our north Broadway building. Just want to scream, “use your time to improve your lives damn commies and stop hating America!”
▪ Kansas state Rep. Joe Seiwart: “I think a lot of them are brought in from out of town, out of state, and from other places just to cause hate and discontent in Wichita.” (Seiwert lives near Pretty Prairie, in Reno County, a 40-mile drive to downtown Wichita).
▪ Dalton Glasscock, Wichita City Council member: “This is sickening. All threats made against the President should be taken seriously by law enforcement.”
The calls for arrests went national courtesy of a post on X by right-wing commentator/provocateur Todd Starnes (Glasscock is the CEO of Starnes’ production company), which was widely shared in the MAGA mediascape.
“JUST IN: Protesters in downtown Wichita openly called for President Trump to be assassinated,” Starnes wrote on X. ”One of my radio show listeners filmed this video. The Secret Service should be booking flights to Wichita. h/t Hunter from KQAM Radio!”
Starnes followed up on his website with this:
“Over the weekend, dozens of protesters in Wichita, Kansas clogged downtown sidewalks chanting Comey’s slogan. And no surprise – but no one was arrested. Not a single person was arrested for threatening the President of the United States. Watch video of the violence below.”
I watched the video. There was no violence. If anyone here should face charges, it ought to be Starnes, for false advertising.
No punches were thrown, no windows were broken, no one’s video equipment was smashed, nothing was stolen. Wichita’s weekly protests are downright sedate compared to the Trump-sponsored and Trump-pardoned Jan. 6, 2021 invasion of the Capitol — which was severely violent and which our local Republicans honchos attempt to justify at every turn.
So let the blowhards blow and the bloviators bloviate. Nothing illegal happened at the corner of Douglas and Broadway on Saturday afternoon.
We supposedly live in a country where we elect our leaders, who are required to govern us within the bounds of a constitution that guarantees freedom of speech and the freedom to assemble and protest.
That’s what the U.S. Constitution means when it guarantees all Americans a “republican” (little r) form of government.
The day anyone gets arrested in Wichita or anywhere else for standing on a public sidewalk waving a sign and griping about Donald Trump is the day the Republican Party is republican in name only.
This story was originally published May 28, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
