In 'Shorter America', Dr Emma Shortis keeps you up-to-date on the United States with news and analysis that you can trust.
Sat 17 Oct 2026 09.32 AEDT
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
This week, the Pacific showed world leaders firsthand what climate change looks like. Back home, the Coalition and One Nation saw something else. They saw an opportunity to dog whistle and punch down on our Pacific nations.
In “Shorter America”, Dr Emma Shortis keeps you up-to-date on the United States with news and analysis that you can trust.
Last week, US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth announced that the execution of a former US Army major by firing squad would be livestreamed. It took nearly a week for the President to decide that maybe wasn’t a good idea. Even for Trump, that would have been an appalling escalation. The fact that they even considered it is a major issue for Australia.
This week:
On my last two trips to the United States, I was lucky enough to get into some big political events – I saw Donald Trump speak at the Washington Hilton, at the Libertarian Convention, and Kamala Harris at a couple of different rallies. Because I went in as ‘media’, I had to sign over a bunch of details, and whether it’s because that was all managed by third parties, or because the Democrats or Libertarians sold it off, I’m now on a bunch of quite weird email lists.
I usually ignore them (Italian General Confederation of Labour, I’m happy for you about your work on Italian industrial policy, but I ain’t reading all that). Occasionally, though, they stop me in my tracks. This week it was one with the subject line ‘Hegseth future/pardon and execution livestream’. It was betting odds, on whether the livestream would go ahead. They reckoned there was only a 40% chance of it happening, and there were very short odds on Hegseth being the next cabinet member to get the boot.
What a place. Betting on whether an execution by firing squad will be livestreamed to the public, or not. Gambling is a huge problem for American democracy – have a look at this wild report from the Anti-Corruption Data Collective.
It’s also just gross. All these betting odds generally also have no real sense of the ideological motives at play – not to mention normalising something hideous. Journalist Marisa Kabas was on it, chasing the betting company – you can read their pathetic statement here.
Even the fact that the US Secretary of Defence considered this a good idea is a fundamental moral breach. This is the man in charge of the most powerful military in the world. But it’s worth emphasising that such a moral breach is entirely in line with the Trump administration’s regressive ideology. As this piece from the Equal Justice Initiative and this one in The Intelligencer make clear, the movement behind Trump has always wanted to take America back to a pre-Civil Rights era; to a time of public lynchings and segregation. The UFC President wants to reshape the United States, and the world, into a place where the violence of white men rules.
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It is no coincidence that all of this happened in the same week that ICE Agents raided the home of Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar. It is difficult to overstate the significance of the administration using power like this, against an elected member of Congress.
Federal authorities have seized Omar’s phone, and, according to this report in the Guardian, “issued more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas, including to some of her relatives”. This is clearly a dangerous, anti-democratic and appallingly racist attempt to silence a critic. Here’s Jamelle Bouie on Trump’s racism and how that should be an impeachable offence.
Between this and the livestream idea alone – not to mention everything else – we should be deeply, deeply worried about the state of American democracy.
But even that Guardian report is struggling not to normalise this egregious attack. It reports credulously that “federal authorities investigate potential fraud in Omar’s immigration paperwork” and then goes on to a but-Democrats-object. This is not a “both sides” issue. It is a catastrophe for democracy and the rule of law.
Not that you would really know that, if you’re listening to the Australian Government. It scrambled, this week, to contain the issue of the execution livestream. It took days for the Prime Minister to say something meaningful – and even then, it was only because he was asked about it. The same was true of the Foreign Minister, who only said something on Tuesday – and again, only after she was asked by Greens leader Senator David Shoebridge.
Instead, there was equivocating about whether the Government has the power to block the livestream. And no real acknowledgement that if it doesn’t have that power, it should do its job and legislate. It took One Nation Senator Barnaby Joyce to suggest that.
And despite the fact that even the idea they would do this is a fundamental moral breach – how can we possibly trust the United States anymore? – nothing substantive will change. Readers might have noticed that the Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister – the very same one who has described Pete Hegseth as a “good friend” and is always ready to rush off to Washington to see him – had nothing to say about the matter. Nothing.
When Barnaby Joyce can claim the moral high ground, surely it’s time for some deep self-reflection. But don’t hold your breath.
Dr Emma Shortis is the director of the international & security affairs program at the Australia Institute.
