Trump Is Reinforcing the Death Penalty
This is terrifying, and you should pay attention
When the government has the authority to execute its own citizens, then the only protection citizens have is to hope the government follows due process of law.
You have to hope that the government and judicial system will obey its own rules, be truthful and transparent with the people, and exhaust all other avenues to ensure guilt before using execution as a last resort.
I do not trust Trump’s government.
Especially after the administration has demonstrated its willingness to strip immigrants of due process. It’s immigrants now, but who will it be tomorrow? I’m sorry to say this, but historically speaking there has never been a government that instituted ‘exceptions’ to civil rights that has not expanded those ‘exceptions’ to cover every citizen they want to target.
It’s called the Imperial Boomerang, or Foucault’s Boomerang; a colonial power that develops repressive techniques to pacify its territories will inevitably use the same techniques at home.
We’re seeing a version of the concept in which immigrants to the country are the current targets—and that’s bad enough, if you care about human beings—but they won’t be the only ones.
People who demonstrate ‘disloyalty’ are also facing pressure from the government. Right now it’s mostly firings and disgrace, but that kind of thing tends to escalate under fascism.
I expect public dissent to start triggering much more severe crackdowns as Trump consolidates power and shuts down the checks and balances that are trying to restrain him.
And with regards to capital punishment, even before Trump took office, all too often, the law has failed in its duty to ensure that only the guilty are killed.
Where does that leave the United States? Nowhere good.
I have never been in favour of the death penalty.
Call me a bleeding-heart Canadian lefty—guilty as charged—but the idea of the state having the legal authority to commit murder is back asswords in my view.
What, somebody allegedly killed somebody, so you’re going to punish him by killing him? That’s justice?
It’s another body on the pile, is what it is. It doesn’t even deter crime; the only thing proven to deter criminal behaviour is the certainty of being caught. It is the risk of facing punishment versus the reward of success. The severity of the punishment matters very little if they’re sure they won’t be held responsible.
And like I said earlier, sometimes the system gets it wrong. Innocent people wind up on death row all the time when the justice system fucks up.
I’d rather let a hundred potential killers live than see my tax dollars go towards the state-approved killing of a single innocent person.
Yeah, yeah—bleeding-heart Woke Canadian, I hear you. I stand by it.
I’m very glad that we don’t need to worry about this in Canada; my country abolished capital punishment decades ago, and I’m proud to live in a nation where our judicial system cannot sentence our citizens to die.
This is not the case in the United States. And now that Trump is in office, the death penalty is more favoured by the government than ever.
Trump is a big fan of power. He likes big moves, maximum impact, and shaking things up. He wants to be seen as a strongman, somebody you’re afraid to cross.
He loves the idea of the death penalty. That’s why he started emphasizing the need for it on day one of his second term as President.
On January 20th, 2025, Trump signed a bevy of Executive Orders and laid out a clear roadmap for the kind of Presidency he was going to have.
One of those Executive Orders was titled ‘Restoring The Death Penalty And Protecting Public Safety.’
Trump makes it abundantly clear in this order that the death penalty not only can be used, but must be used whenever possible.
Sec. 3. Federal Capital Punishment. (a) The Attorney General shall pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use.
(b) In addition to pursuing the death penalty where possible, the Attorney General shall, where consistent with applicable law, pursue Federal jurisdiction and seek the death penalty regardless of other factors for every federal capital crime involving:
(i) The murder of a law-enforcement officer; or
(ii) A capital crime committed by an alien illegally present in this country.
The order goes on to add:
The Attorney General shall encourage State attorneys general and district attorneys to bring State capital charges for all capital crimes with special attention to the crimes described in Subsections (i) and (ii), regardless of whether the federal trial results in a capital sentence.
(d) The Attorney General shall take all appropriate action to modify the Justice Manual based on the policy and purpose set forth in this Executive Order.
(e) The Attorney General shall evaluate the places of imprisonment and conditions of confinement for each of the 37 murderers whose Federal death sentences were commuted by President Biden, and the Attorney General shall take all lawful and appropriate action to ensure that these offenders are imprisoned in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose. The Attorney General shall further evaluate whether these offenders can be charged with State capital crimes and shall recommend appropriate action to state and local authorities.
It also adds in a demand that the Attorney General must ensure that all States that allow capital punishment have a sufficient supply of lethal drugs for the purpose of murdering convicts under a court order.
It’s the last paragraph of the last quote that is especially galling to me; he asks that the offenders be ‘imprisoned in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose.’ Knowing Trump, that means ‘take them to the grey area between incarceration and torture.’
You might not have a problem with that in principle, given the nature of some crimes these people might be charged with. But as a matter of policy, we really shouldn’t be encouraging applying extra pressure and the mistreatment of prisoners.
That’s the kind of thing that becomes unofficial policy for all prisoners over time. As much as we hate the slippery slope fallacy, this really is something we need to keep in mind.
Trump has promised to expand the death penalty and encourage prosecutors to aggressively seek such penalties while he is in office.
For many reasons, this is extremely concerning.
In his first term in office, Trump once lamented that you can’t just shoot migrants in the leg to stop them from making it to the U.S. border.
Trump is known for his love of violence and displays of brute force. He is known for his lack of empathy, his apparent eugenicist leanings—he has an obsession with ‘bad genes’, and remarked that immigrants are ‘poisoning the nation’s blood’—, and his impulsive temper tantrums.
He is not a steady hand at the wheel of a powerful nation.
I don’t like that combination. When you add in his interest in supercharging the use of the death penalty, I get very, very nervous.
This is the kind of thing that an authoritarian government uses, not to deter crime, but to deter dissent.
Remember Foucault’s Boomerang? He’s aiming it at criminals right now, people that most can agree are a problem for wider society. If you aren’t worried about where this is heading, I have a simple question for you:
Who decides what the definition of ‘criminal’ is? Because under fascism, that’s the kind of definition that changes really quickly.
Just as an example, Trump emphasizes that the death penalty should be sought for ‘illegal aliens’ who commit serious crimes. Under the current state of the law, that line seems to exclude citizens, right?
Under the current law, maybe. But here’s a fun fact from history: in 1933, Hitler started revoking citizenship from German-born Jewish people, as well as his political opponants—particularly those accused of being Communists.
They went from being citizens to being ‘illegal aliens’ with the stroke of a pen.
Just saying. Once the mechanism is in place, then he only has to create a legal precedent to start removing barriers to his actions.
This is just one example—obviously the death penalty applies to citizens of the U.S. as well. But I bring this up to point out how quickly basic protections can be stripped away when due process and court orders are being ignored by the guys in charge.
Now, is it likely he’ll be able to pass that? I honestly don’t know; the saving grace of America right now is that he’s trying to push this too quickly for a modern nation. Especially with the internet, which makes it impossible for him to hide what he’s up to.
Resistance is building steadily. We just saw the incredible mass Hands Off! protest across the country, and more demonstrations and marches happen every single day.
Within the government too, we’re seeing some pushback from Republicans, although not nearly as much as we should.
So, will Trump start using his power this way? I hope not.
But I know that trusting him not to is not the right move.
I’m a Bleeding-Heart Woke Canadian Lefty—board certified, with a badge and everything. I dislike capital punishment and I wish it was entirely abolished no matter which government is in charge.
But you don’t need to be a softy like me to recognize that Trump is a whole new animal, and this is a weapon we don’t want him to be able to wield.
Trump is reinforcing the death penalty, and that should scare you. It should snap you awake and get you moving. It should drive you to the streets in anger, and motivate you to demand a change.
Remember, it’s much easier to fight fascism when it’s just getting started than it is to build resistance when it’s already here.
Solidarity wins.
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Sobering thoughts, but entirely plausible line of thinking….. thanks for the great read!
Hell and damn, - is there anything that this disease of a man won't do.