Trump proposes the death penalty for drug dealers

Donald Trump

Trump’s admiration for authoritarians has always been evident, and he’s now flirting with yet another idea from their despotic playbook:

Trump said that allowing prosecutors to seek the death penalty for drug dealers — an idea he said he got from Chinese President Xi Jinping — is “a discussion we have to start thinking about. I don’t know if this country’s ready for it.”

“Do you think the drug dealers who kill thousands of people during their lifetime, do you think they care who’s on a blue-ribbon committee?” Trump asked. “The only way to solve the drug problem is through toughness. When you catch a drug dealer, you’ve got to put him away for a long time.”

It was not the first time Trump had suggested executing drug dealers. Earlier this month, he described it as a way to fight the opioid epidemic. And on Friday, The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration was considering policy changes to allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

Modern US presidents don’t have a particularly strong record of upholding democratic values once they become inconvenient to their goals, but Trump is the first to throw away any pretense at giving any damn at all. Though, to be perfectly fair, that’s probably in part because he doesn’t know or understand the first thing about due process, or Constitutional safeguards – not surprising from a man who (reportedly) rolled his eyes four Amendments into the actual text of his country’s founding document.

(It should go without saying, but in addition to violating the core principles of a democratic justice system, imposing the death penalty on drug dealers would do absolutely nothing to curb the dealing of drugs. “Toughness” on crime does not work, largely because would-be criminals simply don’t consider the legal penalties at play, if they’re even aware of them, when engaging in criminal acts. The idea that harsher sentences lowers crime is a myth that’s now only promoted by dinosaurs like Trump and his Attorney General.)

The man is like a broken, neverending carnival ride – you just never know where he’s going next and how much whiplash everyone else will suffer from it. It’s highly unlikely he’ll make a serious push for this, just as it’s unlikely he’ll push for almost any policy he proposes. The man has absolutely no sincere ideological or political beliefs; he just repeats whatever he last picked up from someone else. And with someone who spends so much time fraternizing with strongmen and autocrats, that’s something to be concerned about.

(via @radleybalko)