The act of livestreaming an execution, which the U.S. Pentagon has ordered for Dec 3, is of course beneath contempt. It seems like a deliberate attempt to position our government as a pack of savages, by publicly staging a pointedly disgusting and frankly vomit-inducing display of extreme violence porn.
But why would government officials debase themselves and our nation in this way? After all, this is just the sort of monstrosity that democracies find deeply offensive when it is done in such places as Iran and North Korea.
Maybe that’s the point. By now they realize that they have no chance of holding onto control of Congress in the midterms, given how thoroughly they have screwed up on every front. So their only remaining play is to flex their authoritarian muscles in preparation for what comes next.
The worry is that on November 4 they will declare the election that they just lost to have been rigged, and then begin the process of instituting martial law. By committing outrageous acts of public savagery now, they can signal that they will not let the normal rules of decorum get in their way.