Trump Calls for Hangings; GOP Calls It Thursday
A sitting president (and convicted felon) calls for the execution of lawmakers, and the GOP responds with shrugs, euphemisms, and excuses.
Let’s stop pretending any of this is fine. Let’s stop pretending this is just “Trump being Trump,” as though he’s a malfunctioning appliance we’re all too tired to return. The man half the country elected President—because January 6 somehow didn’t trigger the “do not reuse” label—openly called for the execution of six members of Congress. No hints. No winks. Just “punishable by DEATH!” typed with the gusto of someone who thinks caps lock is a governing philosophy.
Then he boosted a post saying “HANG THEM.” Not metaphorically. Not symbolically. Literally the sitting President LARPing as a colonial-era executioner. Very normal behavior for a Thursday afternoon in whatever remains of our republic.
Naturally, the White House rushed in with its crisis-management routine, which at this point resembles a fire brigade armed exclusively with damp napkins. “He didn’t mean it,” they insisted, trotting out a phrase now so overused it should be printed on administration letterhead. They say it with the confidence of a teenager claiming that vape pen is “just a USB stick,” hoping we’re all too exhausted to notice the smoke.
But the GOP’s response? That’s where things shift from pathetic to historically embarrassing.
Lindsey Graham—who has spent so many years rationalizing Trump’s behavior he should qualify for Stockholm Syndrome disability benefits—called the comments “over the top.” A president demands the execution of lawmakers, and Lindsey reacts like someone told him the Olive Garden breadsticks are no longer unlimited. If moral courage were a spine, Graham would be a decorative plant.
Rand Paul, never one to disappoint in the “bare minimum effort” department, offered this gem: threatening to hang political opponents is “not a good idea.” Stunning insight. Truly profound. A real Hamilton-level grasp of democratic principles. One wonders how long it took him to workshop that sentence.
John Thune labeled the comments “ill-advised,” which is what you say when someone buys the wrong brand of printer ink—not when the Commander-in-Chief starts posting death fantasies about senators. If Trump went full banana-republic and declared martial law on C-SPAN, Thune would call it “a bit much.”
And Speaker Mike Johnson—America’s foremost expert on biblical selective reading—said he “wouldn’t have used the same words.” Ah yes, the wording. That’s the real issue here. Not the whole advocating for executions part, but the specific phrasing. Johnson then defended Trump anyway, because the only thing with less backbone than the Republican caucus is a bag of parade balloons.
And then there’s Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, stepping up to remind us the administration sees the Department of Justice not as an institution but as the convicted felon’s personal errand service. He called the lawmakers’ video—explaining the legality of refusing illegal orders—a “disgusting display” and announced the DOJ would take a “very close look” at their actions. They’re not investigating the man threatening to kill his critics. No, no. They’re investigating the critics. In a democracy. Out loud. With cameras rolling.
This isn’t complicity. It’s collaboration dressed up as concern-trolling.
Meanwhile, Slotkin, Kelly, Crow, Goodlander, Deluzio, and Houlahan now require police protection because the convicted felon in the Oval Office pointed his digital pitchfork in their direction. And what does the GOP muster in response? Shrugs. Sighs. A few tepid “I wouldn’t say it that way” murmurs from people who absolutely know better and have chosen spinelessness as a lifestyle.
And for the millionth exhausted time: none of this is a misunderstanding. Trump didn’t misread the video. He didn’t misinterpret the law. He reacted exactly as someone would whose worldview begins and ends with personal loyalty. He wants obedience, not legality. Devotion, not duty. A throne, not a presidency.
This is the rhetoric of bargain-bin dictators—the ones whose biographies usually end with “and then I was deposed on page three of the CIA fact sheet.” We know the pattern: Trump threatens violence, Republicans minimize it, pundits call it “fiery rhetoric,” and the rest of us brace for the moment someone decides to take him literally. Again.
And here’s where the jokes stop mattering: the President of the United States—convicted felon, repeat offender of democracy, aspiring autocrat—threatened to kill members of Congress. In public. In writing. In full view of a country that keeps trying to convince itself this is normal.
If this doesn’t alarm you, if this doesn’t register as a five-alarm emergency, then the problem isn’t just the man in all caps. The problem is a country increasingly unable—or unwilling—to distinguish between democracy and its authoritarian knockoff.
Because once you normalize calls for execution, you’ve already lost the plot. And the republic.
In entertainment news, A Man on the Inside is now streaming on Netflix. Coming next week is the restored, remastered, and expanded version of The Beatles Anthology.