At a campaign event at the Detroit Economic Club on Thursday, Donald Trump was interviewed by businessman and former Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates John Rakolta Jr. (Do hit up that link above for some … interesting background on Rakolta and more on Trump’s speech!) During the interview, Rakolta praised the Trump children and even asked Trump for some parenting tips.
“You did a great job raising them. [...] What did you do with your children to make them so responsible and so involved in everything that you do?” he asked.
Given that Trump was reportedly not too involved with his children until they were adults, and that they were primarily raised by their respective mothers, he did not have much to say on the subject. All he was able to muster was that he repeatedly told them not to drink, smoke, or do drugs. He left out the frankly rather heartrending advice he gave them when they were very small children to trust no one, including him.
At a loss for anything else to mention, the elder Trump simply launched into an eight-minute rant about how if he is elected again, he would like to institute the death penalty for drug dealers, a thing he has brought up on numerous occasions but on which he has very rarely been challenged.
Trump claimed multiple times throughout the rant that the only countries that have solved their drug problem are countries that have the death penalty for drug offenses. How true is that? Well let’s see.
Thirty-four countries retain the death penalty for drug offenses. But the only five countries that we know for certain executed drug dealers in 2023 are China, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore. (More than 40 percent of confirmed executions worldwide in 2023 were for drug offenses, according to Harm Reduction International.) The drug executions in the Philippines, of which Trump is so famously enamored, were “extrajudicial.”
China has 900,000 “registered” drug users.
Guess which country has the second highest opiate usage in the world? If you guessed Iran, you would be correct!
Kuwait’s drug addiction prevalence surged by 60 percent in 2023.
Saudi Arabia, where amphetamines have become increasingly popular in recent years, has been called the drug capital of the Middle East.
Singapore, which has a mandatory death penalty for many drug offenses — including for selling marijuana — has seen a 20 percent increase in drug users under 30 in the last year.
I would not say that these countries have their drug problems under control, would you?
You know what country has, actually, seen massive improvements with regard to their drug problems? Portugal, which decriminalized all drug use in 2000, while increasing funding for treatment. In the ensuing years, there was a 60 percent increase in people seeking treatment, a 90 percent decrease in drug-related HIV infections, as well as a massive decrease in the number of drug-related deaths. The United States has also seen a significant drop in Fentanyl deaths that just happens to have coincided with an increase in the availability of Narcan.
But let’s be real — we don’t actually execute people because it deters crime or even because they’re actually guilty. We don’t do it because it keeps people safe. We do it because people think it does and that makes them feel safe, even if they actually are not. It seems like it should work and that’s good enough for them.
That being said, it’s unclear how this would be, in any way, a substitute for good parenting, unless people are meant to murder their children upon finding a dime bag hidden in their backpack.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
It may not reduce drug use at all, but it's revenge, and it's violent. Good enough for Trump!
Donald's kids are so great that they're been barred from running a charity because they stole from a children's cancer charity. His two eldest sons have been judged to have committed real estate fraud.
Yeah, he's done such a great job at " raising " them.