Does President Trump want to bring back the guillotine? According to a number of media reports, the answer is ‘yes’! We’re going to see what’s going on with President Trump’s proposal and look a bit into the symbolism of executions and what all of this means for 2024! You’re not going to want to miss this!
-Law and Order!
-The history of capital punishment paints a different picture than the leftists paint
-This will not hurt Trump. Read why!
The ultra-woke leftists over at Rolling Stone are reporting that President Trump has disclosed to his associates that he is planning on reintroducing the federal death penalty with an array of execution methods that would effectively deter violent crime and drug trafficking; this according to several sources close to Trump. According to Rolling Stone: ‘Trump has talked about bringing back death by firing squad, by hanging, and, according to two of the sources, possibly even by guillotine. He has also, sources say, discussed group executions. Trump has floated these ideas while discussing planned campaign rhetoric and policy desires, as well as his disdain for President Biden’s approach to crime.” He has even, one of the sources recounts, mused about televising footage of executions, including showing condemned prisoners in the final moments of their lives.’ The article went on to note that: “The president believes this would help put the fear of God into violent criminals. He wanted to do some of these things when he was in office, but for whatever reasons didn’t have the chance.”
Now what’s so fascinating about this seemingly sensationalist report is that it actually comes on the heels of a first-term presidency that was unprecedented in its support and utilization of the death penalty! Prior to Trump taking office in 2016, there was a 17 year hiatus in carrying out federal executions; that all ended when Trump came to office. He actually oversaw more federal executions than any other president in 120 years! It was during that time that the ultra-leftwing Slate reported that the Justice Department, at Trump’s behest, put forth a proposal to permit the use of hanging, electrocution, gassing, and firing squad as alternatives to lethal injection given that they had far more deterrent impact on possible would-be offenders! And that’s, again reportedly, that’s where the notion of broadcasting the executions for everyone to see came in. Trump reportedly talked about bringing back public executions as a form of deterrence against murder and violent crime. Now, again, interestingly, this is a story that’s getting quite a bit of coverage: Vanity Fair led with the headline: ‘Report: Trump wants to bring back hangings and firing squads in his second term, is thinking about guillotines, too!’ Yahoo News: ‘Trump’s plan for a 2nd term reportedly includes firing squads, hangings, and group executions.’ And it should be noted that the Trump campaign is playing down this story, in fact, they’re calling it fake news and just flat out denying that Trump even had these reported conversations; but President Trump DOES indeed want to expand the application of the death penalty, particularly to convicted drug dealers:
President Donald J. Trump speaks at the Save America rally in Minden, NV. "I am calling for the death penalty for Drug dealers and human traffickers." For the full rally join us on Rumble: https://t.co/qCfLhiQZd0 pic.twitter.com/t3DSTFPfRi
— RSBN 🇺🇸 (@RSBNetwork) October 9, 2022
So what should we make of all of this? What is the significance of the death penalty in the first place, and would it do our nation good to go back to more, shall we say, classical or dramatic practices associated with it? The answer is going to intrigue you!
The term ‘capital punishment’ actually comes from the Latin ‘caput’, which literally means “head.” So capital punishment, as a term, originates from the practice of execution by beheading. Now, of course, it applies today to many different kinds of executions, from stoning to lethal injections; but that latter practice, the practice of lethal injections, is actually rather controversial, and that controversy has been used to advocate bringing back more, shall we say, dramatic forms of execution! So you may be asking, what could possibly be controversial about the practice of lethal injections, I mean, they’re obviously the most humane way of carrying this thing out! Well, there is an argument that lethal injections actually violate the hippocratic oath of the medical field, which is the refusal to do harm. It crosses the line, or blurs the line between health and death; between therapy and Thanatos, the Greek word for death; it uses medical technology to harm rather than heal, and the blurring of this line has potentially disastrous consequences for society, where medicine could be used legally to intentionally harm and destroy! And so, of course, one counter-argument is to abolish the death penalty altogether; the problem with that, among many, is there are studies that show there is indeed a direct, measurable deterring effect that comes uniquely from the death penalty. Murder rates, or any criminal activity that’s punishable by death as per the culture’s norms, noticeably decline when capital punishment is imposed as the penalty; conversely, murder rates go up when capital punishment is taken off the table and abolished!
And so, the other counter-argument to lethal injection is that capital punishments should be explicit; they should be dramatic and harsh, not scientifically sanitized as they are in lethal injections! And of course, the rather grisly history of capital punishment testifies to the various means by which executions symbolically dramatize more traditionalist worldviews, like we’ve seen of late with ISIS and their theology of beheadings, which signifies the power of the sword in the spread of Islam! But this is where, to the extent that anyone is contemplating or advocating bringing back the more dramatic forms of execution, such advocacies do have some utility as against the more socially problematic implications inherent in utilizing the medical sphere to basically kill rather than heal! Regardless, I think the big takeaway from all of this is that these reports from Rolling Stone and other media outlets are once again bringing to the fore the notion that President Trump is a law-and-order president in stark contrast to bumbling Biden. Under Biden’s tenure, violent crime is skyrocketing, even Bill Maher has brought this up as the Achilles Heel of the Democrats; and so reports like this, either accurate or inaccurate, promote the notion that Trump is about restoring law-and-order in contrast to the cultural rot that is the Democratic Regime! We’ll certainly be keeping our eyes fixed on how that message plays out in the months ahead!
