Roger Stone, part of Trump’s inner circle, is calling for anyone daring to criticize Trump to receive the death penalty.
The normalization of the Trump regime’s fascist extremism has reached a whole new level. Already, we’ve seen a (likely illegal) executive order cutting the funding of NPR and PBS for the crime of not being pro-Trump enough. That came complete with witch hunt style hearings in Congress to boot.
We’ve also seen judges getting arrested for the crime of not bending to Trump’s will. There is also the strong-arm tactics being employed against the scientific community for the crime of not peddling quackery and whatever false “belief” pushed by far right extremists. Another one was the push to arrest and deport US citizens if they don’t adhere to the far right ideology. This over top of Trump’s efforts to rip America’s economy apart on top of it all.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about all of this is the fact that so many circles have normalized all of this. For many, it’s just Trump being “bombastic” or just saying silly little things or whatever other excuse they can dig up to excuse these fascist tendencies. This while completing the moral gymnastics of saying that because Biden mumbled during a debate, that automatically meant that he was not fit to run again for president. Yeah, America totally dodged a bullet with that one, they might ridiculously argue.
The problem, of course, is the fact that the far right extremists are always testing the boundaries. If they feel they got away with one thing, they’ll continue to try and push the boundaries until they are told to stop. So far, things like disappearing people for the crime of writing an op-ed that gives the Trump administration the sads is seemingly politically acceptable these days (seriously, what the actual fuck?). So, the question is, now that the Trump administration has gotten away with literally disappearing people using masked hired goons, what is next?
Well, as it turns out, they are now beginning to take their extremism all the way. Trump loyalist, Roger Stone, has recently called for the death penalty for people criticizing the Trump administration. Forget Trump’s earlier calls to have political opponents thrown in jail. Evidently, that is not a good enough punishment for those who harbour thought crimes like that. Nope, now we are talking about ending their lives altogether. From Alternet:
One of President Donald Trump’s closest associates is now publicly calling for a Democratic member of the U.S. Senate to be killed over a bill he introduced to rein in “corruption.”
In a post to his X account, Trump confidant Roger Stone insisted that Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) was compromised by the Chinese Communist Party because of a company he co-founded getting venture capital from a Chinese company. Stone wrote that Kelly should be “charged with treason and if convicted executed, consistent with federal law.”
The Daily Beast reported Friday that Stone’s remark was in response to Kelly officially submitting a cryptocurrency regulation bill for consideration that would prevent the president, vice president and their families from “issuing, endorsing, or sponsoring crypto assets.” Kelly’s bill specifically mentioned “memecoins,” which is particularly noteworthy as Trump has specifically promoted memecoins named after both himself and First Lady Melania Trump.
How isn’t the response to this call from everyone to Stone not “dude, shut the fuck up”? There are very real concerns about Trump peddling influence through his own personal memecoin. Put money into this obviously bad asset and you get Trump’s ear. This is obvious corruption in broad daylight where you can buy off the president. So, very understandably, you want to put a stop to that.
Yet, somehow, the response to that is that criticism of the Trump administration brings with it the death penalty. Even worse, observers seem to think that this is no big deal. I look at the various feeds talking about this incident and it somehow got next to no play in the media. It got some play in UK newspaper, the Independent where it was treated as an “oh, he said thing” type of story. The Daily Beast covered the story as well in a reasonable manner. There was an article on the Huffington Post which basically treated it as a hum drum politics story. Similar (identical?) coverage was posted on Mediaite as well. That’s it. That is all the coverage I could find on this insanity.
Seriously, I don’t know who needs to hear this, but calling for the death of others for the crime of politically disagreeing with you is not OK. What the hell is so hard to understand about this? Is America really this far gone that it’s just normal politics to kill political opponents at this stage? What the fuck is wrong with you? How are we normalizing this kind of political rhetoric? In fact, it’s being normalized so much so that it’s barely even considered a news story any more. I get that there are blood thirsty psychopaths out there. That not news. What is outrageous is the fact that it’s being treated as just a normal political story. That is completely insane in my books.
Now, it goes without saying the impact this has on free speech. If you are someone who disagrees with something the trump administration says, how motivated are you to speak out against him if you have the threat of the death penalty being waved around like a political dick measuring contest? Not very. There’s already very good reasons why people have already taken to utilizing self-censorship as a means of self preservation. That horse has already left the stables at this point. The problem is that this sort of problem is only going to get worse from here on out as the threats become even more radical.
I’m not an American, but I think it goes without saying that calling for the death of political opponents is unAmerican. It shouldn’t be how the US operates because free speech is something that should be protected, not trampled on. Stone should be ashamed of himself for even suggesting this in the first place. The fact that others are treating this as just normal every day politics is pure insanity.
