While stumping for Republican House candidate Rick Saccone at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday, President Donald Trump digressed to praise Singapore and China for their harsh stance on drug trafficking, often ending in a death sentence. Singapore, of course, also became infamous in 1992 for banning chewing gum — punished by fines and sometimes caning.
The president was impressed that a country like China, with a population of nearly 1.4 billion people, has “not much of a drug problem.” Singapore, too. “Hey!” said Trump, “If you’re a drug dealer, and you know you’re gonna get caught… These people [the Singaporean government], they don’t play games!”
But everything needs context and this applies to Trump as well. A friend of mine explained it this way: “When you listen to Trump, just imagine you’re listening to a radio talk show: add ‘It’s The Donald, from Queens, you’re on the air!’ before everything he says, and it all makes more sense. He’s the most entertaining talk show caller ever, and he’s also our president.” Maybe you think it’s depressing that one could compare the President of the United States to a talk show caller, but that’s neither here nor there.
It seems the death penalty for drug dealers is a policy solution that he sincerely believes. You can see the sincerity in his face and demeanor as he addresses the crowd. The president is emphatic, emotional even, as he talks about the lives destroyed by drug abuse. Drugs—and drug dealers, by association—“are killing our kids, killing our families, killing our workers,” and this makes him angry.
I believe that it sincerely hurts him to hear that people across the country are addicted to drugs and dying. I believe that he sincerely blames and feels angry with drug dealers. But, I also believe that he has not seriously examined or considered mandatory death sentences for them. Indeed, the question is not of mandatory sentences at all. The Washington Post has already reported that the president is pursuing policies that would “allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for drug dealers.” Allowing prosecutors to seek the death penalty is not the same as rounding up drug dealers and lining them up against a wall. After all, the Supreme Court has affirmed more than once that the death penalty itself is constitutional.
The real question we should debate is not whether Singapore and China deserve Trump’s praise. The real question is what to do about our own problem. As Trump rightly argued, “do you think the drug dealers… care who’s on a blue ribbon committee?” No, undoubtedly, they don’t care. What, then, ought to be our approach to solving this? The president believes “the only way to solve the drug problem is toughness.”
Let us, as many people froth over Trump’s Singapore references, resolve to address the real question and not get embroiled in the entertaining and disjointed sidebars as “The Donald, from Queens” tries to get his real point across.
The real point is that America needs to find a solution for the necrotic canker of drug abuse that infects our society. In the 20 years of my life, the number of Americans dying from drug overdose has more than tripled, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The problem exists right here in Hillsdale and we need to decide, as a community, how we’re going to deal with it. Just this year, according to the Hillsdale Daily News, a local was sentenced to 76-240 months for possession after the original charges of delivery of a controlled substance causing death were dismissed.Hillsdale County Circuit Judge Michael R. Smith said, “That’s the way you make your living, selling and dealing drugs. If anybody deserves to be taken off the streets it is you. You’re nothing more than a drug dealer. My only regret is that I cannot give you more time.”
Do you agree with the judge? Should we be more lenient? These are the questions we should ask. Americans need to stay focused and talk about the real problem—not whatever Trump said about Singapore.
Jenna Suchyta is a junior studying economics.