Analysis-Republican White House hopefuls embrace killing criminals to fight crime
Source: Reuters
Analysis-Republican White House hopefuls embrace killing criminals to fight crime
Gram Slattery
Fri, October 20, 2023 at 6:03 AM EDT·4 min read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fentanyl producers in Mexico should be killed. So too should human traffickers and drug smugglers on the U.S.-Mexico border. Shoplifters should be shot. Drug dealers and rapists? Executed.
Some Republican contenders for their party's 2024 presidential nomination have turned to a blunt policy proposal to tamp down on crime: killing criminals.
The approach is not entirely novel, and it no doubt would face legal challenges. Major Republican presidential candidates have long advocated for an expansion of the death penalty, and former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, said police should rough up criminals during his 2017-2021 term.
But Republican strategists involved in previous campaigns and experts in political rhetoric say that calls to shoot, kill or otherwise injure criminals, at least those who commit the most heinous crimes, appear to be more common during this Republican primary race than they have been in other cycles.
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"In a primary where it is becoming increasingly difficult to break through the noise, the incentive is to say something more outrageous all the time," said David Kochel, a Republican consultant who is not aligned with any candidate.
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Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/analysis-republican-white-house-hopefuls-100308907.html
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