Pete Hegseth’s announcement that the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others in the November 2009 Fort Hood massacre, will be livestreamed is more than a disturbing policy decision. It is a sign of the moral bankruptcy of this administration, the MAGA movement, and a mainstream conservative movement that has increasingly embraced cruelty as a virtue, vengeance as justice, and the exercise of power as a substitute for morality.
Let me be clear: the argument is not that capital punishment itself is fascist.
The argument is that turning an execution into a public spectacle, celebrating the suffering of another human being, and presenting cruelty as a demonstration of strength are expressions of an authoritarian political culture and the erosion of the rule of law.
Imagine the people who will sit alone, or gather with their families, to watch a man being executed live. Imagine making that a family viewing experience. What are we teaching our children? What kind of society are we trying to build when the state invites people to watch a human being die, not because they have any role in administering justice, but simply because they can? What kind of people will eagerly tune in? And what does it say about a political movement when it wants them to?
There is a reason public executions became a relic of our past. The last widely recognized public execution in the United States was the hanging of Rainey Bethea in Owensboro, Kentucky, on August 14, 1936. A crowd estimated at 20,000 gathered to witness his death.
The last military execution took place on April 13, 1961, when Army Private John A. Bennett was hanged at Fort Leavenworth– the U.S. hasn’t carried military public executions since the Civil War.
The execution of Hasan, if carried out as announced on December 3, would end more than 65 years without a military execution in the United States. And nine decades since the United States ended such barbaric practice.
Public executions belonged to an era when rulers used the spectacle of punishment to instill not merely fear but terror, when the suffering of those condemned became a public demonstration of the state’s power.
Public executions were not simply about administering justice. They were also about spectacle, intimidation, and the public display of authority. They were a feature of a crueler past, one in which tyrants and despots understood that making an example of a condemned person could help keep the rest of the population in line. This is akin to state-terror.
We have the rule of law. We have courts, military tribunals, appeals, and established procedures for administering punishment. Justice does not require a livestream. Accountability does not require an audience. And the state does not need to turn an execution into entertainment to demonstrate that its laws have consequences.
The normalization of cruelty is the point. This is not peace through strength. It is cruelty masquerading as strength, vengeance masquerading as justice, and the naked glorification of violent power masquerading as moral authority.
And it is impossible to separate this from the administration’s increasingly disturbing relationship with Christianity.
The MAGA movement and much of the conservative establishment have helped cultivate a political Christianity that appears to have abandoned the very moral restraints it claims to defend. It is a Christianity that finds room for compassion when it is politically convenient, but little patience for mercy when the condemned is deemed an enemy. It excuses violence when the state commits it, bigotry when it targets the right people, and moral transgressions when they serve the right political cause or the accruing of power.
In this new political religion, Christianity is no longer a moral framework by which power is judged. It has become a means by which power is sanctified. The language of faith is used to excuse cruelty, the language of patriotism to excuse abuses of authority, and the language of strength to excuse the abandonment of humane restraint and basic humanity.
This is not a defense of Christian morality. It is its political appropriation.
The parallels with fascist political culture are difficult to ignore. Fascism is not merely authoritarian government or the use of force. It also involves the glorification of violence, the subordination of institutions to ideological loyalty, the construction of internal and external enemies, and the celebration of power unconstrained by ordinary moral considerations.
When a government makes the suffering of a condemned person into a spectacle, encourages people to witness it, and presents that spectacle as a lesson in the consequences of defying its authority, we should recognize the danger.
The issue is not simply the punishment of a criminal.
It is the political normalization of cruelty.
And Hegseth’s conduct as Secretary of Defense must be considered in this broader context. His stewardship of the Department of Defense, the administration’s military operations whose legality is deeply contested, and his efforts to reshape the armed forces around ideological loyalty rather than professional independence demand serious congressional scrutiny. His removal of senior military leaders, his approach to promotions and command, and his efforts to impose his vision of military culture raise fundamental questions about the preservation of an apolitical, professionally competent military. It seems Hegseth is more interested in waging war against the military itself.
The United States military is not supposed to be a personal instrument of the president, a political faction, or a religious movement. Its strength rests on professional competence, constitutional obligations, lawful orders, institutional integrity, and a chain of command that serves the nation rather than a cult of personality. Replacing experienced leaders with loyalists, undermining independent professional judgment, and turning the ranks into an audience for ideological indoctrination threaten those foundations.
The danger is particularly acute- and a clear and present threat to national security and the continuation of the American republic– when that ideological project becomes entangled with white Christian nationalism: a vision of America that confuses national identity with a particular religious and cultural identity, treats dissent as disloyalty, and claims a monopoly on patriotism and moral authority.
No political movement has the right to demand that the armed forces surrender their professional judgment, constitutional obligations, or individual conscience to its ideological agenda. The military belongs to the American people—not to MAGA, not to Hegseth, and not to any self-appointed guardians of a supposedly Christian nation.
For these reasons, Pete Hegseth should face impeachment proceedings and removal from office. Congress must investigate his stewardship of the Department of Defense, the legality of the administration’s military operations, his treatment of senior military leadership, and any efforts to politicize the armed forces or undermine their constitutional obligations. Impeachment is not a substitute for investigation; it is a constitutional mechanism through which Congress can hold executive officials accountable when the evidence warrants it. Congress must do its job.
Keep all this in mind and VOTE in the midterm elections. Vote for representatives who understand that democracy requires accountability, that the military must remain subordinate to the Constitution rather than a political personality, and that no administration is entitled to exercise power without limits.
Demand answers from your representatives. Demand congressional oversight. Demand that they investigate, hold hearings, and pursue impeachment where the evidence and constitutional standards justify it.
Do not dismiss this as just another outrageous announcement, another controversy that will disappear beneath the next news cycle. These things do not happen in isolation. The spectacle of an execution, the glorification of cruelty, the political appropriation of religion, the weakening of professional institutions, and the cultivation of personal and ideological loyalty are all part of a larger question about the kind of country we are becoming.
None of this diminishes the horror of the Fort Hood massacre or the suffering of its victims and their families. Hasan’s crimes were horrific, and accountability matters. But the moral character of a society is revealed not only by how it condemns those who commit terrible crimes, but also by how it exercises its own power in response.
The state is not exempt from moral scrutiny simply because the person it punishes has committed monstrous acts.
A government that claims to defend civilization should not need to turn a human execution into public entertainment to demonstrate its authority.
A political movement that claims to defend Christianity should be able to explain how the public celebration of death reflects the moral teachings it professes to uphold.
And a nation that prides itself on the rule of law should recognize the difference between administering justice and cultivating a public appetite for cruelty.
Cruelty is not strength. Vengeance is not justice. Religious nationalism is not Christian morality. And blind loyalty to a political leader is not patriotism.
We have seen where the glorification of violence and the subordination of institutions to ideological loyalty can lead. We should not wait until the damage becomes irreversible to recognize the warning signs.
The question is no longer simply what punishment a convicted criminal deserves. It is what kind of society we are willing to become—and whether we still have the civic courage to stop this descent before cruelty becomes the measure of our national character.
Vote in November. Hold them accountable. Defend the Constitution. Defend the rule of law. And do not allow the normalization of cruelty to become the new American normal.
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Continue reading: Hijacking Christianity: From the “Bible of Pulp Fiction” to “Pharisees”- it is a Cult. – in cOHERENT Thoughts
On Hegseth’s betrayal of our principles and waging war on our own troops: No, the USS Abraham Lincoln Is Not a Cruise Ship. That Is Precisely the Point. – in cOHERENT Thoughts
The Biggest Strategic and Moral Blunder in U.S. History – in cOHERENT Thoughts
