Republican White House hopefuls embrace killing criminals to fight crime
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[October 20, 2023]
By Gram Slattery
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fentanyl producers in Mexico should be killed. So
too should human traffickers and drug smugglers on the U.S.-Mexico
border. Shoplifters should be shot. Drug dealers and rapists? Executed.
Some Republican contenders for their party's 2024 presidential
nomination have turned to a blunt policy proposal to tamp down on crime:
killing criminals.
The approach is not entirely novel, and it no doubt would face legal
challenges. Major Republican presidential candidates have long advocated
for an expansion of the death penalty, and former President Donald
Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, said police should
rough up criminals during his 2017-2021 term.
But Republican strategists involved in previous campaigns and experts in
political rhetoric say that calls to shoot, kill or otherwise injure
criminals, at least those who commit the most heinous crimes, appear to
be more common during this Republican primary race than they have been
in other cycles.
The reasons are various, those people said.
Trump received little political blowback from inside the party for his
rhetoric toward crime while in office, when he routinely called
criminals "animals" and "thugs," noted Doug Heye, a long-time Republican
strategist.
Crime, meanwhile, is a greater concern for voters than it has been in
previous elections, even as crime trends are mixed.
Violent crimes, including rape and murder, declined in the United States
in 2022 from the previous year, according to a report released by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation this week. At the same time, property
crime and aggravated assault were up, while the 21,156 murders reported
in 2022 were above pre-pandemic levels.
Some 88% of respondents in a September Reuters/Ipsos poll said crime
would be an important issue for determining who gets their vote in the
November 2024 general election.
With Trump nearly 40 percentage points ahead of his nearest rival in the
Republican race, his opponents are also incentivized to try to break
through by putting forward attention-grabbing policy proposals, even
those that appear to advocate state violence.
'SOMETHING MORE OUTRAGEOUS ALL THE TIME'
"In a primary where it is becoming increasingly difficult to break
through the noise, the incentive is to say something more outrageous all
the time," said David Kochel, a Republican consultant who is not aligned
with any candidate.
During a September speech in California, Trump made headlines for
saying, "If you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are
leaving that store. Shot!" He did not say whether store owners or police
would be doing the shooting.
The former president has reiterated previous calls for drug dealers to
receive the death penalty, despite legal scholars questioning its
constitutionality.
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A U.S. flag-themed handgun and a Donald Trump-themed gun are
displayed for sale at the Des Moines Fairgrounds Gun Show at the
Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S. March 11, 2023.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump's top challenger, has said
repeatedly he would authorize deadly force against suspected
smugglers crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, leaving them "stone-cold
dead."
DeSantis has signaled he is open to firing missiles into Mexico to
kill narcotics kingpins involved in the trade of the synthetic
opioid fentanyl that is fueling a deadly drug crisis in America. He
and several other contenders have signaled they are also open to
sending special forces into Mexico, the U.S.'s top trade partner, to
kill suspects involved in the drug trade.
During the spring state legislative session in Florida, DeSantis
signed a bill expanding the use of the death penalty by, among other
measures, allowing its use in cases of child rape, which has not
occurred in the U.S. since 1964.
At the most recent primary debate in California in September, former
Vice President Mike Pence said he would seek to accelerate
executions of people involved in mass shootings.
Trump and Pence did not respond to requests for comment, while
DeSantis' campaign defended his statements.
"Unlike the other candidates' mere talk, Ron DeSantis has delivered
results on law and order issues," said DeSantis campaign press
secretary Bryan Griffin.
DeSantis' campaign noted that he has also sought to increase the
number of police officers in Florida by offering them signing
bonuses.
Pence has said he supports tough-on-crime measures paired with
criminal justice reform, indicating he still supports a measure he
signed as the governor of Indiana in 2015 to reduce the population
of low-level offenders in state prisons.
Practically speaking, some of the proposals the candidates have put
forward are likely illegal and their efficacy is untested, raising
questions about whether they would be put into practice, legal
experts say.
For instance, the U.S. Supreme Court holds that the application of
the death penalty for crimes that do not result in the death of the
victim is generally unconstitutional. In 2008, the court left open
the possibility of the death penalty for "drug kingpin activity,"
though it has never been applied.
"These are potentially policies, but they're also a way of getting
attention," said Thomas Zeitzoff, a politics professor at American
University in Washington. "It's a signal to the base that I'm
tough."
(Reporting by Gram Slattery, additional reporting by Nathan Layne in
Wilton, Connecticut and Tim Reid in Los Angeles, editing by Ross
Colvin and Howard Goller)
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