 So, we're just a couple of months into Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, and it doesn't really seem like he's thinking of ways to help the American people in the event he's able to win a second term. Instead, he is cooking up new and creative ways to kill American citizens if he's elected again. Literally. So, this isn't the first report that we've gotten about his authoritarian plans for a second term, but basically, he wants to expand the death penalty, bring back arguably more barbaric ways to kill Americans, and on top of that, possibly make public executions a thing comparable to Saudi Arabia, perhaps. It's deeply chilling, but I mean, it's not surprising because this is Donald Trump who we're talking about. So the story comes from Rolling Stone magazine who spoke with three sources close to Trump on the condition of anonymity, and here's what they say, quote, the former president if re-elected is still committed to expanding the use of the federal death penalty and bringing back banned methods of execution, the sources say. He has even, one of the sources recounts, mused about television footage of executions including showing condemned prisoners in the final moments of their lives. Specifically, 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. In at least one instance late last year, according to the third source who has direct knowledge of the matter, Trump privately mused about the possibility of creating a flashy government backed video ad campaign that would accompany a federal revival of these execution methods. In Trump's vision, these videos would include footage from these new executions if not from the exact moments of death. The former president believes this would help put the fear of God into violent criminals, this source says. He wanted to do some of these things when he was in office, but for whatever reasons didn't have the chance. Hmm, interesting. So based on that, it seems logical to deduce that he's very heavily leaning towards public executions as a form of deterrent. In the same way that Saudi Arabia, for example, uses public executions to deter against political opponents doing disloyal things as one Saudi exile says the regime does. Now what I find hilarious about this story is that he's denying this. His campaign is calling this fake news when his Justice Department quite literally moved to expand execution methods for federal inmates on death row. So after his administration tried to expand the methods within which the state kills federal inmates and also expedited their deaths, by the way, he's saying, no, we wouldn't want to do this, but your administration tried to bring back firing squad. So why should we not believe that you would do that again? And it's not just firing squad to be clear. It's also guillotines and hanging and group executions and doing it in a very public way, which makes it really deranged. To be fair to Donald Trump, lethal injections is arguably more cruel and inhumane than death by firing squad. The authors explain Trump's firing squad fixation may address his desire for the dramatic, but some experts believe that an instant death by gunshot may be more humane than a lethal injection. There's pain, certainly, but it's transient according to Dr. Jonathan Groner, a professor of surgery at the Ohio State University's College of Medicine, quote, if you're shot in the chest and your heart stops functioning, it's just seconds until you lose consciousness. So even though death by lethal injection looks more humane and it makes us feel more civilized, it still causes suffering. And oftentimes it's botched and causes the inmates to die in a very painful way. But ultimately, we shouldn't be trying to come up with more humane ways to kill citizens. We should just not allow the state to kill citizens because if murdering citizens as a form of punishment isn't a violation of the Eighth Amendment's cruel and unusual punishment clause, then nothing is. So killing citizens should not be an authority that the state has. And on top of that, a reason to not kill citizens is because oftentimes we get it wrong. As Science Magazine explains, 4.1% or 1 in 25 death row inmates have been mistakenly convicted and this is based on three decades' worth of data. So when we get it wrong that much, when our track record is that bad, the state should not have the authority to kill people. And furthermore, this idea that using the death penalty as a deterrent is nonsense because it's not. That is demonstrably not the case. And I understand the emotional arguments that people make in favor of the death penalty, right? Yes, this one criminal, he murdered a bunch of people, did terrible things, therefore it's justified for him, so it should be an option. But even though I understand and sympathize with that argument, which is an emotional argument, but it is an argument nonetheless, the problem with that is that justification, those exceptions that we make are often used as a pretext to expand the state's ability to kill citizens and that ends up harming people in the future. So take this example with Rhonda Sanders, where he was asked about the Parkland shooting and here's what he said about protecting people in the future, specifically referencing the Parkland shooter and what he wants to do about capital punishment. We're going to reform the capital sentencing procedure in Florida. Of course, to get convicted of a crime, you need a unanimous jury. When Nicholas Cruz was somebody, everyone knew was guilty and he's entitled to process, but this was not anything that he admitted it, right? So then they go for the penalty phase and you kill 17 people. How, what other penalty can you get other than the ultimate penalty? And yet you have one holdout that can nullify that. So DeSantis, Trump's main opponent, wants to expand the death penalty. He just said that. Now he may have said it in a more eloquent way and he used a more reasonable justification to do that. He doesn't want to expand the death penalty just for the sake of being cruel and seeking retribution. He wants to do that because in this instance with Nicholas Cruz, the Parkland shooter, it's obvious he murdered 17 people. We know he's guilty. Just put him to death. Like why are we even considering this? And I think that argument, it makes sense on a visceral level. The problem is that this short term justification will lead to long term harm because people will inevitably be harmed by this change that we're making specifically to punish Nicholas Cruz, somebody who's innocent will be killed potentially because of this change that we're making. So you have to ask yourself, what is the goal of our justice system? And if the goal is simply retribution, then that is going to lead to suboptimal outcomes as we've seen. We need to reimagine the ways in which we think about crime and punishment. Because if you want to stop mass shootings in the first place, being more harsher and punitive towards the shooters isn't going to stop the shootings, but gun reform will. Stopping drug dealers from dealing drugs by killing them, like Trump wants to do, isn't going to lead to the end of drug trafficking. Drug reform will. So we have to think about ways that we're trying to prevent crime. And if it's within the context exclusively of being more harsher towards criminals, that's where we're wrong and that's where the state should not have the authority to kill citizens. Because again, oftentimes it leads to more people getting harmed than we'd like to admit as a society. But either way, what Trump wants to do is deeply horrifying. And this is why we just can't allow him to get a second term, because we already saw how authoritative and he was in his first term. But now when he's like broadcasting what he wants to do and he's saying, I want to basically do public executions by guillotine or hanging or firing squad. That's where we've got to kind of wake up as a country and ask ourselves, how is this man viable politically in 2023? Even though, yes, the GOP base is insane and a majority of them support Christian nationalism, according to one poll. Still, I feel like this is a failure on all of us. Like this is a societal failure that we're witnessing that this man is still viable despite all the terrible things that he says and doesn't wants to do. So either way, that's Trump's plans. The best you can do is educate yourself and fight against him with everything that you've got. I'm chilling for the DNC. I stopped watching. So I definitely won't be hitting the subscribe button. Or turning on notifications by clicking the bell. No way. It's very sad, I know.