Listen to “Don’t Watch Hegseth’s Stunt” on Spreaker.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wants to make sure Americans can watch the execution of the convicted Fort Hood mass murderer. That doesn’t mean we should.
Hegseth’s plan resembles an exercise in political theater, an attempt to gain notoriety and shore up support among President Trump’s political base.
“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
Americans already understand that murder carries serious consequences. And deranged, evil people bent on committing atrocities are unlikely to be deterred by the prospect of an execution streamed over the internet.
Hegseth would do well to revisit the Enlightenment teachings of the French political philosopher Montesquieu.
“The severity of punishments is fitter for despotic governments whose principle is terror, than for a monarchy or a republic whose spring is honor and virtue.”
Montesquieu was making a profound argument about the relationship between government power, punishment, and the character of a free society.
He did not oppose capital punishment outright.
His central point was that the more a government relies on fear to secure obedience, the more it resembles a despotism rather than a free republic.
And that distinction matters.
Does the Fort Hood murderer — whose name isn’t worthy of mention — deserve capital punishment? Perhaps he does.
What he deserves may be easier to determine than the broader moral question of whether government should take a human life, a question wrestled with in a previous commentary.
But whether his execution should become a public spectacle is an entirely different matter.
The administration apparently believes broadcasting an execution will demonstrate the strength of American justice. It risks demonstrating precisely the opposite.
Government should aspire – it too often fails – to reflect the best of our humanity, not indulge our worst instincts.
Justice need not become entertainment. Punishment need not become spectacle. And the government’s authority to take a life does not create an obligation to invite the public to watch.
If the administration allows Hegseth to proceed with a publicly streamed execution, Congress should intervene to prohibit it.
Either way, Vice President JD Vance has indicated he doesn’t intend to watch. Good on him.
Neither should the rest of us.
Perhaps if Americans refuse to participate in this spectacle, Hegseth and others who share his weaker instincts will discover there is little political reward in turning death’s machinery into a public performance.
A free society should demand a virtuous, honorable justice from its government, not a show.