Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s\u00a0confirmation<\/a>\u00a0Thursday that the firing squad death of the Fort Hood mass shooter will be\u00a0livestreamed<\/a>\u00a0was swiftly met with bipartisan outrage and questions over how the public execution will be carried out.<\/p>\n Firing squad executions are rare in the US (though they have been sparingly used as an alternative to lethal injection recently,) and public displays of the death penalty are even less common. The last public execution is considered to be the 1936 hanging of\u00a0Rainey Bethea<\/a>, a Black man from Kentucky who was found guilty of raping a White woman by an all-White jury.<\/p>\n About 90 years later, on December 3 at 1 p.m. local time, the public will be able to watch Nidal Hasan\u2019s death at Texas\u2019 Fort Hood, where he\u00a0killed 13 people in a 2009 mass shooting<\/a>. [CNN\/Politics<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This sounds like a misstep to me. What’s up, Secretary Hegseth?<\/p>\n To my mind, Secretary Hegseth is fulfilling the role of tough-guy Department of Defense Secretary. Remember, his most recent job or two have consisted of fulfilling dramatic roles: Secretary of Defense, Fox News<\/strong><\/em> host. He knows his boss, President Trump, the guy who decides whether or not he keeps his socially prestigious job, functions mostly on the plane of drama, of visual effects.<\/p>\n And President Trump is in trouble. The Party he supposedly leads is going down in flames in the mid-terms, if polling and special election results are trustworthy indicators, and the humiliation may be crippling. It’s not impossible that the Party even may begin a very public dissolution.<\/p>\n This televised execution will, I think it’s hoped, stir up and thereby gel the Republican base, as they must do to shrink Democratic margins, as well as attract independent voters still angry over Hasan’s barbaric slaughter of his fellow soldiers<\/a>. I expect the Democratic base will pay attention, but few, if any, will switch their vote because of Hegseth’s spectacle. But it may attract dormant Republican voters who prefer strict punishments for destructive individuals.<\/p>\n It’ll be used to promote certain politics, and that may be dicey. If Trump is too closely associated with the execution, it may drive tentative Republican supporters away, especially if the event is not treated with the proper gravitas<\/em><\/a>. Will it be? Despite the experience of Hegseth and Trump in drama, neither seems to have much of an understanding of how certain societal events must be treated with dignity; trying to further one’s political views by publicly executing a criminal, even one as evil as Hasan, isn’t classy.<\/p>\n But then, no one’s accused Trump of being classy. He tried a war to distract the citizenry, and that made things worse. Now he’s trying an execution. I doubt this’ll work out any better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The latest in midterm election maneuvering: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s\u00a0confirmation\u00a0Thursday that the firing squad death of the Fort Hood mass shooter will be\u00a0livestreamed\u00a0was swiftly met with bipartisan outrage and questions over how the public execution will be carried out. Firing squad executions are rare in the US (though they have \u2026 Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/PXL_20260315_144802588-scaled.jpg?resize=263%2C351&ssl=1\")
<\/a>OK, the Secretary is putting a criminal in a wheelchair and ordering soldiers to shoot him. Parts of the world will be inflamed, Americans of anti-death penalty sentiment will be angry, and the fact that Hasan’s in a wheelchair, to the rational-minded an irrelevant fact, will still touch the heart of anyone with sympathy for the disabled.<\/p>\n