Trump’s and Hegseth’s barbaric decision to live-stream an execution

Friends,

Cruel enough that the United States is going to put someone to death by firing squad, but only sadists would want it broadcast livestream.

Yet that’s what Pete (“High Testosterone”) Hegseth is planning. He confirmed it yesterday when speaking to the conservative broadcaster Real America’s Voice, saying said people should be able to watch “because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”

Nidal Hasan committed a terrible crime. The former U.S. Army Major and psychiatrist opened fire with a handgun at a medical facility at Fort Hood, Texas on November 5, 2009 as soldiers waited for medical checks before deployment, killing 13 and wounded 32 others. Twelve of those killed and 30 of the wounded were soldiers. Hasan was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 after being convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder.

The execution will be the first by firing squad carried out by the U.S. military since 1945, when army private Eddie Slovik was executed for desertion during the second world war. The last US military execution of any kind took place in 1961, when John Bennett was hanged.

But live-streaming it?

The hanging of Rainey Bethea in Kentucky in 1936 is regarded as the country’s last public execution. It was witnessed by thousands.

A live-streamed execution could be watched by billions.

No surprise. The current president of the United States is all about spectacle; his secretary of defense (war) is brimming with performative bravado. Punishment isn’t enough. The punishment must be cruel — and must be seen far and wide.

Asked today whether he had personally authorized or approved the live-streaming of Hasan’s execution, Trump responded, “Did I approve? Absolutely.”

What will be the likely effect on those who will see this? Will they be revolted? Excited? Will the live-streaming of the execution by firing squad deter people from committing mass murder — or will it encourage them? Or just degrade our sense of being human?

What about its effect on those who are enemies of the U.S.? As Ned Price, a former deputy to the U.S. representative to the United Nations, posted on X: “You can take it from those of us who’ve spent years working on terrorism: the surest way to spawn more radicalized zealots is to glorify violence, embrace a cult of death, and create a martyr for the cause.

Besides, haven’t we witnessed enough senseless and degrading cruelty in the pursuit of the execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee?

Public executions have largely disappeared around the world because they’re so barbaric. Amnesty International recorded 17 in 2025, including 11 in Iran and six in Taliban-run Afghanistan.

Historian Esther Cohen writes that during the later Middle Ages, governments often displayed their power in visual, theatrical forms: solemn royal or urban processions, festivals, and, most commonly, public executions of criminals. That was because other means of communication available to governments with their subjects were extremely limited — printing didn’t as yet exist, and preaching was the church’s prerogative.

Medieval public executions were intricate rituals displaying atonement, punishment and, most of all, the authority of the government to administer justice. They also inflicted considerable pain and suffering upon the condemned, so much so that one historian has termed them “spectacles of suffering.” The spectacles were meant to be visual representations of authority — displaying the full power of the law to all observers.

Making the criminal suffer achieved the dual purpose of cleansing his soul and deterring other potential criminals. Status was expressed by symbolic dress, worn at the procession preceding the execution, or by the form of inflicting death. Noblemen wore their livery of rank and office, while common criminals were often stripped to their shirts. People of rank were very rarely hung, for hanging was a shameful death; more often, people of nobility were beheaded, preferably with a sword.

Rulers took care to stage their public executions in a spectacular manner. The spectacle itself was its essence. “The Ritual of Public Executions,” from the 16th century, stated that the culprit was ‘to be dragged as a murderer, beheaded as a traitor, quartered for several other crimes, and his body hung on the gibbet as a thief and brigand.”

Trump and Hegseth are intent on extending such barbarism into the 21st century. Not only that, but they want to livestream the degrading spectacle, bringing it fully into the digital age. In this and countless other ways, they continue to degrade and demean America.