“One of the first things I do in terms of executive order if I win,” Donald Trump said Thursday in New Hampshire, “will be to sign a strong, strong statement that will go out to the country, out to the world, that anybody killing a policeman, policewoman, police officer, anybody killing the police officer — death penalty. It’s gonna happen, okay?”
No, in fact, it’s not going to happen, because the president is not a dictator. When one peers into the murky abyss of Trump’s ignorance, it is shocking but no longer surprising to realize its depth. How can it be, one wonders, that the national polling frontrunner for the Republication nomination, the leader in New Hampshire at the moment, knows so little about the job he seeks?
The U.S. has a constitution that prioritizes both a vertical and a horizontal separation of powers. The executive cannot act on most matters without legislation. And the federal government cannot interfere in that which is properly governed under state laws.
There does exist a federal death penalty, but it is very rare because it must involve a federal capital offense. The federal government has executed only three people in the past 50 years, one for a terrorist attack on a federal building, one for murder in the course of running an international drug ring, and one for raping and killing an enlisted soldier.
In most circumstances, the killing of a police officer is a state offense and each state sets the penalty for it. Some have decided that the penalty should be death. Others have decided that it should not be. Some states do not have the death penalty at all. No president can change that. Nor can a president override the judgement of the judge or jury responsible for sentencing.
This is all basic civics. People running for president should understand such things.
Voters should also understand what candidates like Trump are doing when they make bombastic promises they cannot possibly fulfill even if elected, and that includes not only this promise, but also his border wall financed by Mexico, and his proposal to bar all Muslims entry to the country. Panderers are everywhere in politics, and the more outrageous they sound, the more obvious it is that they are lying and that they will say anything to win election.
Many outsiders run for office, but the successful ones tend to study the job they plan to do. Trump comes from a world of business, and in that world, he makes decisions and people dutifully carry them out. If he says, “You’re fired,” then you have to clear your desk.
But that is not so in the world of American government. The founding fathers designed the system to frustrate ambitious, power-hungry executives who want to make big changes and accomplish things.
That includes Barack Obama, who in his arrogance and amid his own bout of re-election pandering once asserted that his agenda could not wait for Congress to act. It also includes Trump, whose campaign might well demonstrate just how far a politician can get if he does nothing else besides pander.
