Donald Trump has cancelled the planned public livestream of Nidal Hasan’s execution. The decision comes a few days after Trump began privately expressing doubts about the decision, which was spearheaded by self-styled Secretary of War and Crusader wannabe Pete Hegseth.
Writing on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump said while he personally thought “streaming the execution for all to see might have been a strong deterrent,” there were “many very good and well-meaning people (who) would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device.”
The execution by firing squad will continue as planned but “this event will not be streamed,” he said.
Count this a small victory for human rights.
Even within Trump’s own inner circle, the proposed livestream garnered significant resistance. Vice President JD Vance said he would not watch, while Trump advisers worried about footage of the execution being used as propaganda by extremist groups. Some Republican lawmakers also expressed opposition to the livestream with Sen. Thom Tillis calling it “beyond disgusting” and Rep. Austin Scott chiming in that it’s “what jihadists do.”
Of course, the fact that it’s “what jihadists do” was central to Hegseth’s view of retributive vengeance. As I wrote for BNG when the livestream was announced, Hegseth designed the execution to reflect Hasan’s own crimes, with the time, location and manner of death aligning with Hasan’s religiously motivated mass shooting rampage.
“Are we prepared to accept the consequence of believing our civic religion justifies murderous violence if that consequence is making it public?”
Hegseth saw this as an opportunity to show the world the consequences of believing one’s religion justifies murderous violence, encapsulated in the execution of an Islamic extremist. Instead, he turned the mirror toward himself and his own nation and allowed us to ask that same question of ourselves: Are we prepared to accept the consequence of believing our civic religion justifies murderous violence if that consequence is making it public?
48.6 million
On the whole, it turns out, Americans have said no.
A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll found about 80% of Americans oppose livestreaming the execution. The issue was divisive even among self-ascribed “MAGA Republicans,” with more than half (55%) opposing the livestream. It seems that, at least for now — with the specter of a midterm election forthcoming — we’ve finally found a moral depth to which we will not sink. We will not livestream an execution.
But we cannot let high numbers hide behind low percentages. There are 270 million U.S. adults. The poll found 18% of respondents supported the livestream. If that percentage holds up among the population at large, then 48.6 million American adults were comfortable with livestreaming someone’s death.
To put it into perspective, a televised event watched by 48.6 million Americans would have attracted an audience larger than any U.S. television event in 2026 so far except the Super Bowl. It would have more than doubled the NBA Finals viewership. This would have been a prime-time event. Just because the percentages are low does not mean the raw numbers are not still alarmingly high.
Don’t let the fact it was cancelled or the deceptively low percentage confuse you. A significant number of Americans supported this.
This number of people is not a fringe movement. It is not a handful of extremists lurking on the dark web, raised in the era of an unfiltered 4chan or Reddit where execution videos were easily accessible. It is a significant minority across the whole population — Republican and Democrat, white and nonwhite, Christian and non-Christian, young and old, rich and poor.
While some demographics were more or less likely than average to lend it their support, every demographic had some amount of support. That doesn’t go away with the livestream.
Wanting what we do not want to watch
The deeper discussion, though, is the disparity between the percentage of those who approve of the execution and those who approve of its livestream. While only 18% approve of the livestream, more than half (53%) support the execution. Americans are substantially more willing to kill Nidal Hasan than they are to endorse making that killing visible. All told, 69% of those who support the execution don’t want it made available to watch.
“We don’t mind the killing; we just don’t want to watch it.”
We don’t mind the killing; we just don’t want to watch it.
Mark Wingfield
Humans have a remarkable capacity to endorse violence in the abstract. We can support executions, ICE raids and outright genocides because we never have to see the bodies, hear the final words or witness the consequences of the violent actions we support. We have become jaded and insulated from the cruelty of our government. That’s why BNG Executive Director Mark Wingfield wrote that he was glad about the proposed livestream: “Too many Americans have lost the ability to be shocked and horrified by the moral rot of this administration. We need to see it all.”
The proposed livestream threatened to unveil for us what America has become — and, in truth, what it always has been. It would have taken an execution out of the realm of political rhetoric and placed it before the public as a physical, tangible event. A human being in a wheelchair, wheeled into place before a firing squad, seated before a government set to carry out a deliberate act of killing.
More than two-thirds of those who want Hasan dead did not want the moral culpability of watching. It would have forced them to confront, in real time, what their support for his execution actually meant. We are willing to authorize the violence while refusing to watch it happen.
Milgram experiment
In the 1960s, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram did a series of now-famous social psychology experiments on this very topic. He published his work in a book called Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. In the study, participants were told to administer increasingly powerful electric shocks to another person whenever they answered questions incorrectly. The shocks were fake, and the person being shocked was an actor, but participants believed they were real.
Even when the person receiving the shocks appeared to be in distress, many participants continued because the experimenter told them to proceed. The main takeaway from Milgram’s study is that obedience to authority often overrides our sense of moral culpability.
However, a lesser-known aspect of Milgram’s study is that proximity matters. He performed his experiment in four ways. In the most distant, the person being shocked was in another room and could not be heard or seen, except to pound on the wall in protest once the shocks reached 300 volts. In the most proximate, the individual doing the shocking had to physically place the hand of the person being shocked onto the shockplate. While 66% continued shocks at the most distant, only 30% did when they had to physically be involved.
“We are more likely to accept violence if we do not have to see or participate in it.”
We are more likely to accept violence if we do not have to see or participate in it. More recent research backs that up. When the person on the receiving end of violence is less immediate, visible or psychologically present, some of the barriers that restrain harmful behavior can weaken. People can justify harmful actions, minimize their consequences and distance themselves from responsibility for the suffering they cause.
We do not have to see ourselves as cruel to support cruelty. Sometimes we need only keep the consequences far enough away.
The real reason for the canceled livestream
And that is why the livestream was cancelled. Not because we suddenly think killing is wrong, but because making it public might force us to more deeply consider our moral culpability in ending the life of another human being.
The disparity between support for the execution and support for its livestream is because we don’t want to have to see the consequences of our actions. Viewing the death of Nidal Hasan may force us to reflect on who we are and where our values lie. Because, in the words of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, we can’t handle the truth. The truth might change us.
In part, I think, the livestream was canceled because the government saw that if it showed us how they revel in cruelty, then just maybe we’d say enough is enough. Now, the government’s backtrack can provide us with a sense of ease. They aren’t cruel! They aren’t heartless! We stopped the livestream! We have a small but significant moral victory!
But Nidal Hasan will still die. Pete Hegseth’s vision of vengeance will still play out. Only now it has the moral distance that will allow it to continue.
Don’t get it wrong. This is a moral victory. It is good that this livestream has been stopped. But it is not the sum of the battle against our government’s cruelty. This should not be an end to the pushback, but the beginning of a call to accountability that refuses to allow violent cruelty.
Josh Olds is a public theologian and pastor for those disillusioned with institutional church. He is the creator of the small-group video series “Year on the Mountaintop” and a featured contributor to Fostering Hope: A Prayerbook for Fostering and Adoptive Parents. Follow his work on Facebook or at JoshOlds.com.
Related:
Catholic and Methodist leaders condemn livestreamed firing squad
What kind of people are we becoming? | Opinion by George Mason
The state doesn’t need my eyes | Opinion by Justin Cox
Pete Hegseth’s gospel of violence | Analysis by Josh Olds
Justice does not require spectators | Opinion by Brian Henderson
Go ahead and livestream that firing squad execution! | Opinion by Mark Wingfield