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Small update, but trump just tweeted that the execution livestream has been cancelled: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117445309638266855
I guess it wasn't something they were really committed to, and they just threw out the idea in a tweet to test the waters, and took it back after it didn't go so hot. Either that or the logistics of doing the livestream and even coming up with a location to do it is pretty difficult. Since there are no existing areas to do the act, idk if it will be in a hastily constructed facility or they'll just strap in in the downrange area of an existing shooting range.
Jonathon Moran got it right already https://x.com/JVanMaren/status/2108586303444943246?s=20
They're in the overly online psychopath echo chambers so deep they don't even realize that a large number of conservatives and conservative leaning voters are not aligned with the most extreme and cruel ends. Americans are fine with the death penalty overall, but Hegseth just couldn't help himself and needed to go further past where the public is at. Americans want punishment, but they don't want blood entertainment.
It doesn't matter what the execution is: critics will always make this complaint. It is impossible to meet the approval of critics who a priori will never give you any. "I would have supported letting you execute terrorists, something I don't support, but you had to do it in a way that alienated me, so, alas, I am forced to recant my support."
I hear for example that Trump could have done more deportations if he'd just been nicer about it. There are reporters at major newspapers whose job is to sit in immigration court all day waiting for examples of mean deportation. Deportation was never going to be nice. You could have the nicest deportation in the world and they would find something mean about it.
Heckler's veto is never made in good faith. They don't want to "gotta hand it to you". They just want an excuse to shut it down. They will always make one.
The idea that disagreement and disapproval only comes from ill motivated haters is exactly the philosophy that helps make such bad PR mistakes. You can find plenty of conservatives and Trump supporters such as Moran or Erick Erickson or heck, the vice president himself! who voiced a dislike of the execution.
There are lots of people who are perfectly willing to give you a chance. You can see this by looking at the approval rating history.
In January 2025, Trump net approval was +11.7. Now it is -22.2.
How could it ever have been +11.7 if all the disapproval is from bad faith complainers who never give a fair shake? Were they all coordinating a lie in order to make his downfall look worse?
The swing is not from negative nancy's who hate Trump no matter what, but from people who gave him a genuine chance and found him lacking. Had he gone about things in a way to appeal to the centrist/moderate/swing voters who were giving him a very fair opportunity instead of in group extremists, perhaps the betting market odds wouldn't have swung as hard as they did. This reflects the change in voter approval! He genuinely failed people's good faith expectations.
I didn’t say that all criticism of Trump was a priori invalid. I said that user Jonathon Van Moren’s complaint is an impossible standard, because there is always an optics problem. You can criticize anything on the grounds that it looks bad to other people, it’s an empty complaint.
This is the problem with such an argument: look, I might have been willing to agree with you, since it’s a good point, but unfortunately Jonathon Moran’s version of that point is bad, which means I just can’t agree with you at this time.
That's just not really true at all. Imagine two candidates running for a state's governorship. Yesterday they were both filmed 24/7.
Candidate A was filmed helping old ladies cross the street, volunteer at food kitchens, and other generic good things.
Candidate B was filmed kicking puppies, stealing candy from babies, and other generic bad things.
Who do you think has an easier time with their own PR, and who do you think has it worse?
Your actual actions do matter.
Yes some people will try to spin what you do in bad faith no matter what, but it's not an excuse to be unconcerned with PR. Kicking puppies is unpopular among voters, and thus doing it hurts your electoral chances.
Likewise, look at the Trump admin. Tariffs poll insanely bad in general because the general voterbase doesn't like having higher prices ("it's the economy stupid"), so it should stand to reason that price increasing tariffs hurt electoral chances.
Maybe if he wasn't obsessed with insanely unpopular things like tariffs, betraying Ukraine, threatening to invade Canada, open and blatant corruption (one of the top concerns of voters now!), harassing legal immigrants, etc etc and sticked to widely supported policies, he wouldn't be in the puppy kicking slump.
The puppies have rabies and were about to bite a child. The old ladies crossing the street are committing welfare fraud. Or whatever.
This is a different debate. Before you were arguing (via Messieur Jonathon) that Trump was doing all these potentially popular things in alienating ways. Now you’re arguing that he’s just doing unpopular things. Ok then so that earlier conversation just doesn’t matter.
However there is still a clearly media-driven appearance to things, I.e. Trump is not actually threatening to invade Canada, and when it was Hunter Biden sitting on oil and gas boards all I ever heard was about how this wasn’t real corruption and only partisan Republicans could possibly care.
Which is to say, we’re not even having a conversation about whether anything Trump is doing is good. We’re just debating whether it’s unpopular. Which is a low form of debate and why I point out that anything can be made artificially popular or unpopular by motivated partisans. Those puppies have rabies and needed to be kicked. Trump is right about tariffs. Canada had it coming. Etc etc
Yes those are the same things, he's doing things that in the generic sense could be popular but in the unpopular ways. It's like if "interacting with a puppy" polled +40, so they get it into their heads that kicking a puppy will be popular. That's just not what is meant by interacting with puppies!
In a representative democracy, doing what the citizens want is the most important part. If you're a leader wanting to remain popular, you should interact with puppies by feeding them and giving them pets, not kicking them.
If you're voted in because people are concerned about old dementia patients causing inflation while more concerned about random cultural war BS, maybe don't be an old dementia patient causing inflation while more concerned about random cultural war BS. Be not that and do the popular things that citizens want.
Are we even having an argument anymore? I’m not sure what point you’re making except that you don’t like what Donald Trump is doing.
I’m quite confident that Trump is not an old dementia patient, and I’m quite confident you never called Biden an old dementia patient while he was in office.
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