Trump the Terrible

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, [...] sources say. He has even, one of the sources recounts, mused about televising 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.

[...]

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.”

  Rolling Stone

For whatever reason.

A Trump spokesman denies Trump had mused about a video-ad campaign. “More ridiculous and fake news from idiots who have no idea what they’re talking about,” the spokesman writes in an email.

Well, it's totally believable.

The former president’s zeal for the death penalty has already proven lethal. During the final months of his administration, he oversaw the executions of 13 federal prisoners. Since 1963, only three federal prisoners had been executed, including Oklahoma City bomber and mass murderer Timothy McVeigh. In January 2021, in the final stretch before Biden would become president, Trump oversaw three executions in four days.

[...]

Trump’s enthusiasm for grisly video campaigns has been documented before, including in an anecdote from a former aide that had the then-president demanding footage of “people dying in a ditch” and “bodies stacked on top of bodies” so that his administration could “scare kids so much that they will never touch a single drug in their entire life.”

[...]

At an October rally — to cheers and applause from his audience — Trump pitched a form of supposed justice that has been embraced by some brutal dictatorships. “And if [the drug dealer is] guilty, they get executed, and they send the bullet to the family and they want the family to pay for the cost of the bullet,” Trump said at the rally.

If he gets "cheers and applause from his audience," you can bet he's going to keep it in his repertoire.

If you insist on state executions, firing squad may actually be the best way to go, but televised and group murders?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.