Update to Below

No, they don't literally pledge to stab you in the throat, not while campaigning, at least; they use gauzy words and phrases about "freedumb" and "Making America Great Again.™" If you want to know what they're going to do, you have to look at their actual, written platforms or what they've done in the past, or at least pay attention to the literal meanings of their words, and who has time to do that? Certainly not the media! 'Course, this same media is more than happy to also wage pitched class warfare when called for, so we're going in circles here. Really, it seems like the only logical answer is that a good percentage of Americans are cryogenically frozen most of the year, only thawed out come November, a concentrated blast of campaign commercials featuring American flags and candidates with hard hats on talking to construction workers* piped into their brains, hustled off to the voting booths, and stuck back into deepfreeze. Seriously: nothing else makes sense.

*"You fool! This footage shows the senator talking to the Village People! Now we'll have to reshoot the entire ad!"