Biden’s reversal on death penalty is self-defeating
Former President Donald Trump’s ability to entice others toward their own destruction is a well-documented phenomenon.
As president, Trump churned through staff — attorney generals, chiefs of staff, members of his cabinet, military advisers. The list is long and included some who were previously distinguished.
Many people in his circle have twisted and turned their ethics insideout so they could go along for the ride, only to be discarded. So you’d think by now people would step gingerly before they get too close to him.
Add President Joe Biden to the list of those stepping too close to the fire. In Biden’s case, it’s not Trump that he is trying to please. It’s the Trump voter.
Biden’s Justice Department is going full-in on reversing what had been Biden’s campaign promise to get rid of the federal death penalty.
The intention now is to execute Payton Gendron, the white supremacist who killed 10 and wounded 13 in a shooting spree at a store in Buffalo, New York. He drove over 200 miles from his home in May 2022 with the intention of murdering Black people. This is the first time the Biden administration has asked for execution in a new case.
Why is Biden doing this?
Trump has called for drug dealers and child traffickers to be executed. Does Biden really want to sound equally “tough” on the bad guys?
The Justice Department argued in a Jan. 12 filing that Gendron deserves the death penalty. Justice Department officials cited Gendron’s intentionality in the killings as well as his blatant racism. Gendron has already received a life sentence in prison without parole after pleading guilty to state charges.
His crimes were horrific and understandably pull at the emotions. His act was clearly a hate crime that raised fear among Black people.
When Biden was a presidential candidate, he ran on eliminating federal executions, an aspect that he saw was part of America’s past, part of a vengeful America.
As outlined in his campaign website, he promised not only to push Congress to outlaw the federal death penalty, but to offer incentives to states that still have it on the books to eliminate it. He claimed it was an ethical concern for him.
But four years have passed. And the 81-yearold Biden is stalked by the insinuation that he’s too old, too feeble for another term. Trump is the loudest voice making that allegation, even though he is just four years Biden’s junior, but hardly a picture of health, mentally or physically.
Biden is not likely to dispute Trump’s ageism claim. He’d be better off appealing to more reasonable voters. The American public is increasingly and rightfully questioning capital punishment.
The death penalty is not a deterrent for criminals. Those who commit the most heinous of acts often act in the spur of the moment.
And when they do not, as in the very plotted and painstakingly planned actions of the Buffalo shooter, they expect to be caught and criminally prosecuted. Capital punishment cases are incredibly expensive because the bar is so high, often costing the government far more than even incarcerating someone for life.
And the innocent have been swept up. Since
1973, there have been 190 people exonerated while on death row (the majority of them Black), according to the ACLU.
In Gendron’s case, some of the victims’ families were in favor of the death penalty. But others clearly and publicly were not.
There was no consensus, no collective grief that the Justice Department could cite as a reason for calling for Gendron’s execution.
Either a person believes executions are government-sanctioned murder or they do not. Biden claimed he believed they were. Maybe he’s decided that the threat of another Trump presidency calls for drastic measures.
Still, there’s something backward and self-defeating about trying to be more like the person you are trying to counter as an avenue to defeating them — in this case, out-Trumping Trump.