1. United States
2. Wash.
3. Letter

Speak out now against Pete Hegseth's plan to publicly broadcast the December 3 execution of Nidal Hasan by firing squad. This is not justice — it is a spectacle, and it has no place in a country that claims to stand for human dignity. The last public execution in the United States was the 1936 hanging of Rainey Bethea in Kentucky. We look back on that moment with shame. Hegseth is deliberately dragging us back there. When asked if he approved of airing the execution, Trump said "Absolutely." That word should alarm every elected official who still believes in basic standards of civilized governance. Countries that routinely broadcast executions include Iran, Afghanistan, and North Korea. That is the company this administration is choosing. Hasan committed a horrific crime and deserves punishment. But turning his execution into a live broadcast is not about consequences — it is about conditioning the public to accept state-sanctioned violence as entertainment. Sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan called this "defining deviancy down": the slow erosion of moral standards when societies normalize the unthinkable. Your constituents are watching whether you will stand against this or stay silent while the floor drops out.