I have tried not to be joyful over the illness and death of my political opponents (or of anybody I don’t like), or to rejoice at their deaths. Yes, I wish Donald Trump was gone, but not via some horrible illness. After all, these are human beings and have feelings as well as families who (by and large) love them, and those people will suffer, too. Further, as a determinist, I realize that these people couldn’t have done other than what they did. That doesn’t mean I excuse their doings, for I am so constituted as to excoriate them, and excoriation (and reward) can change people’s behavior.
But I’ve heard many people wish not just for Trump’s death, but for a painful, agonizing death. This is a staple for all Republicans on certain odious websites, one of which celebrated Mitch McConnell’s illness
The only optimistic news I’ve seen is that Mitch McConnell, one of the architects of the conservative dominance of the Supreme Court, may be dying.
. . . . So maybe a slow, miserable death…but not too painful, since his mind is probably mostly gone. We’ve got time to get some champagne and caviar before his demise! The most generous thing I can say is that I wish he’d retired to the happy bosom of his family and a life of relaxation a decade or two ago. As it is, he overstayed his tenure, and to what end? The poisoning of his beloved Republican party.
Now McConnell is still sitting in the Senate, and it’s fine to wish him gone, and even to say that you’re not very sad if he dies. But to wish for a “painful agonizing death”? I’m sure that if by some magic had the power to inflict that, they wouldn’t think twice.
These are the same kind of people who applauded Luigi Mangione for killing Brian Thompson, which is an even more odious behavior.
Now you can explain why people’s death have removed a deleterious element from society, as Hitchens did for Jerry Falwell, but I see that as different from wishing them to die or suffer while they’re still alive.
But you may feel differently. Let’s take some polls!
and a related one:
I think it would be good if Vladimir Putin dropped dead of a heart attack. But I’d be fine with it being quick and painless.
Well, but Putin isn’t the political enemy; he’s the enemy. I really hated that chekist POS the moment he popped up on my radar in the late 90s. Couldn’t really understand all those idiot western politicians fawning over him.
The only way to get rid of him is if he drops dead (a Stalinesque death would be more than apt: a stroke and marinating in his feces for a whole day because no one dared to help him) or if one of his underlings puts a bullet between his cheeks (which cheeks I’d leave up to them but I’d prefer the ones below his waist).
And pardon my German, but if I had one free wish for that mangy rat from a Leningrad backyard it would be something like this.
I voted “no” because doing that is bad for ME to do: my doing that harms my own mental health
🎯
At the risk of seeming trite: “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
I don’t think it’s trite at all. Nietzsche said much better what I was thinking.
People wishing death– specifically, violent non-natural death– on political opponents is a moral bridge too far for me. It’s also a strong indicator that the person lives in a partisan echo chamber.
A friend, who lives in a self-curated media/social media bubble, said she wished Trump were killed. I responded simply, “I don’t believe in murder.”
We certainly don’t need DJT to bachieve martyr sttus. With all the news coverage of him and ai, we will literally never see the end of him.
Do you really mean that Republican websites cheer McConnell’s death? I know Trump hates him, but it sounds to me like it is odious Democratic websites you are referring to.
“…excoriation (and reward) can change people’s behavior.” This is true. But when the people doing the excoriating do it for the fun or profit of it, they aren’t trying to change behavior for the better. They actually want the behavior to be worse. It is what they get out of it. It becomes about them. I do not think this applies to any one on this site.
Many times in the last 10 years I have wished for trump to drop dead. So my answer should be “yes” it is OK. I am not going to judge myself for every thought or feeling that comes into my mind. But based on your example, I chose “no”. I think it is quite different to have a thought than to express it and your example was expression. I can choose when having a violent thought not to feed it, as thinking that way does me harm. Fertilizing potential violence by expressing it publicly takes thought into action, and is poisonous and dangerous.
I remember when saying “We want to make Obama a one term president” was considered beyond the pale.
I wish we could go back there. I still do consider it beyond the pale. Remember, “They go low, we go high”? We’ve lost our way.
I would say it’s probably not a great state of mind for the ill-wisher to inhabit, for their own sake, and I would guess that it’s rarely useful in any reasonable sense (other than perhaps for mustering support from likeminded people). Still, since wishing for someone’s death or suffering–or for anything else–has no more impact on reality than do thoughts and prayers, I don’t REALLY care one way or the other. It clearly has done McConnell no harm over the years for people to wish various ills upon him (I don’t doubt that he has been the target of innumerable secret and not-so-secret wishes for death and suffering) and I don’t think it will have any effect on the time, place, and manner of his actual death.
I suppose there is some question about whether such expressions of ill will actually increase the chance of someone, somewhere, ACTING on those wishes, but that’s an empirical question that has not, as far as I know, been tested. But wishing for someone’s death–or even celebrating their murder as in the Mangione case–is fundamentally different from acting to harm someone. Words and thoughts are not violence. On rare historical occasions–e.g., Alfred Nobel–learning that others wish for one’s death and would celebrate it, might even lead someone to change his or her life or to try to do something better with whatever legacy such a person might have. But that’s an anecdote, so…
As a free will skeptic, I am uncomfortable with questions like the ones promoted. People will wish for what they wish for. They can’t help themselves. One might wish for something silently, and it will have little effect beyond one’s psychological demeanour. To advocate or express ardently for a wish will likely have unintended consequences. In this case, likely negatively.
I may be an atheist, but I still believe in the Golden Rule.
I loathed Margaret Thatcher with a vengeance. She was the only person on the planet that I thought I may be able to assassinate. It was just a mind exercise, I could never take another person’s life, unless they were in the process of endangering the life of someone I loved.
I was very surprised by my reaction when I learned that she had Alzheimer’s. I’ve always said that I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, and it turned out to be true. I wish she didn’t have it, but I’m not surprised by the joyous reaction to her death here as she hurt so many working class people.
I’m atheist, so I don’t believe people get punished in the next world, but I believe in karma in a practical sense, without the religious bit. If people see you being nasty, they are much less likely to offer you a hand of support in the future, if they see you being kind, then they will be more likely to be kind to you. I think you get back the treatment that you give out. I think it’s part of human instinct.
In that article PZ is confirming that he is a nasty person. I haven’t liked him since I saw him making sexual suggestions to a woman he didn’t know live from a stage. I thought it was appalling and hypocritical and none of the sceptics there called him out on it, although the host (Rebecca Watson?) seemed a bit embarrassed.
There is no place for ad hominem attacks in debate. It’s very ironic that the only thing I have of Thatcher’s on my phone is a meme I share regularly of her quote: “If they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left”.
Presumably that applies to PZ.
That is surprising about what you claimed to see from PZ, as that seems out of character for him. But I am NOT surprised about his gloating over the mortality of political enemies.
As a twist in this discussion, what about wishing a premature death on the likes of Hitler? I think many of us would be willing to assassinate him if were were alive back then and had the opportunity.
I honestly don’t know if I could even have killed Hitler. That’s one i’m going to have to ponder!
PZ claims to be a feminist, but inviting a woman you don’t know back to your hotel room to ‘collect your prize’ is a really creepy innuendo. Especially as it was soon after elevatorgate and the topic of unwanted advances should have been in his mind.
I can’t remember what the woman was getting a prize for, but he was presenting it and he said that when she was called to the stage. It’s on youtube somewhere, but I can’t remember the event, i just remember being totally creeped out by him.
There’s a word popular in the British commonwealth, an expletive I’ve been spanked about for using in the USA and at WEIT, so I shall refrain.
But PZ…
D.A.
NYC
Give me a clue! There are a LOT of expletives that could apply to him 😁
Pondering this, I realize that I don’t wish for death even for convicted serial killers, so vile politicians? Not them either. Thing is, when Trump finally dies he won’t care one way or the other. Now to see him humiliated (may we at least hope that he dies in prison?), that’s different. For one thing, his cult-followers will see him humiliated, and that might lead them to see the error of their ways, and repent.
Agreed. I’d like Trump to experience a long period of humiliation and shame (except he doesn’t do shame), preferably dementia-free so he can fully appreciate his fall.
Also agree. One of my “fears” is that Trump will die believing in all of his lies. I want him to have the opportunity at least to be punished and excoriated for all the awful things he has done.
DJT wouldn’t do humiliation either. Loyal supporters gave him actual power, people who hate him give him a whole not more. (I have friends who obsess about him over stuff he might do.) Expecting DJT to learn anything, or have a deathbed conversion/revelation ain’t gonna happen either.
Why wish him a horrible death, when incurable laryngitis could also work. Maybe even better.
I voted “no” on both, but there’s hesitation over the first question – wishing for the death of political/ideological opponents or people I don’t like – if I am allowed to include foreign groups like Islamic fundamentalist terrorists intent on rape, torture, and forced submission to Islam. I don’t see a whole lot of scope for reform here, but I do see a clear and present danger. It’s unlikely that an entire powerful activist subculture is going to become ill and retire to the country in order to appreciate nature and spend more time with their families.
I voted ‘no’ on both too. My view is that if you had some means to visit death on a politician, terrorist, or criminal that were leading an active life then you have no way of knowing if their replacement would be worse. So ‘wishing’ for their death is blind to the consequences too.
Several commenters here have made the point that wishing for the death of a person does not really affect that person. What it does cause is a bad effect on the wisher—it degrades, to some extent, their humanity. I completely agree.
That does not mean that people need to wish their political enemies a long, happy life. And it is not a bad thing to hope that a certain politician is told by their doctor that political life is too stressful, and that the stress is highly likely to result in serious consequences for their health, and that they would be far better off spending more time with their families.
Something that might be relevant here (I haven’t read it myself yet), written by two American political scientists (from Yale and New York University, respectively):
I would never hope for (nor celebrate) the death of anyone. However, I do hope for (and celebrate) bad people no longer being able to do bad things, period.
The reason I voted yes on it’s okay to have feelings of wishing for someone to die or die painfully is that feelings do not affect the outcome of the situation. Wishing is a feeling. No harm done to the recipient. It does hurt the person wishing as it can hard to feel some intense feelings of rage and anger. But people have intense feelings at times. It’s part of being human. The responsibility is on the wisher to deal with these intense feelings that humans are capable of. But no harm is done to the person wished upon. Feelings cannot affect reality.
When intense feelings are applied in a healthy way, I’m happy to see it. When I see a very good actor playing a murderer or deranged person, I am in awe that they can recognize their human feelings of rage and hate and channel them into an experience they probably won’t have. Like murdering someone or adding in their demise. But they certainly are experiencing their own feelings of wanting someone badly harmed.
I see feelings as part of being human. It’s just a feeling that can come and go.
I voted Yes on both, on the simple ground that one’s private mental activities are fundamentally different from one’s public activities. Eg, nothing wrong with Luigi wishing, but a lot wrong with Luigi acting on the wish.
Do you ‘No voters’ NOT consider private mental activities to be a normal part of a human being’s exploring, considering, and weighing possibilities? If that’s normal, then maybe our moral goodness rests in recognising when the private wish must remain private — that is, in recognising when acting to bring about the wish would be morally wrong. If private wishes are not okay, then it sounds as if very imaginative people are not okay?
A more entertaining version is George Carlin ‘The Confessional’.
I respect your reasoning. For me, such private wishes do arise, but I mentally banish them as an immoral thought, even though such private thoughts are harmless.
I’m a bit confused by the questions and based on the comments so are some other readers. My problem is with the definition of “wish”. Are we talking about the kind of wish where you see a shooting star and whisper to yourself or are we talking about public declarations of your desires? Some here (mostly voting yes) are making a thought crime analogy which would suggest the private wish while some (mostly no voters) see it as an unseemly open celebration of the suffering of others. I agree with both of them based on their respective definition of “wish”.
I don’t know if it’s okay or not. But I find it depressing to read or listen to such wishes expressed against real living people. Fictional characters’ deaths I can celebrate with the best of them!
Normally I don’t approve of wishing death on another person, and I never celebrate a person’s death. As it happens though, in December 2025 I had an online conversation where I said there were 5 people in the world that “I wouldn’t be sorry” to see dead. They were Putin, Xi, Kim, Khamenei, and Maduro. I felt that each of the five were guilty of crimes against humanity, and each had caused death and misery on a monumental scale. I was as surprised as anyone that a few months later one was indeed dead and another was in a US prison. My curse doesn’t seem to have worked on the other three though.
I guess I wanted them dead in the hope that might offer something better for the countries they ruled. It hasn’t helped Iran though.
So I suppose my honest answer would be “normally no but yes in a few extreme cases.” I don’t think people should wish anyone a slow and painful death.
If you are wishing death and suffering to political opponents, then don’t be surprised when their supporters wish death/suffering to the people you support.
Politics, as frustrating as it can be, is still people using words rather than violence. Do we really want to live in a society where violence in the political arena is normalized? I can see a 1,000 bad effects from this that more than cancel out any visceral pleasure one may experience from seeing an opponent dead or physically suffering.
I’m surprised that anyone voted ‘yes.’ People who admit to wishing death upon someone else (be it painful, agonizing, or otherwise) are committing murder in their hearts. I may not be religious, but I try to be moral, and I consider such behaviour disreputable.
Not being a saint I have unbidden dark thoughts and feelings. What my unconscious selects to put in my in-basket is not my responsibility. My job is to process the in-basket and make decisions. FWIW I’ve found that ignoring or repressing dark thoughts is not a healthy policy. YMMV.
I understand why wishing for the death of a political opponent is considered immoral or unethical but I reject this. In a democracy, sure because term duration is often limited, voters have a say, and there are processes for removal from office. But someone like Putin who has led to the death of a million innocent Russian men needs to go. He cannot be removed from office so faced with certainty that many more innocents will die for no good reason, I wish he would die. I don’t think we should kill him and I agree that we cannot kill other heads of state but I fail to see how wishing for the death of a leader to save another million people is immoral. It’s utilitarianism and literally the Hitler question. If I lived in 1945, I not only would want Hitler dead but I would have to murder him. And that too would be a moral decision.
Pacifism (or even conscientious objection) is not as sanitary a moral position as many believe because standing by as innocents are victimized or killed when one could have prevented it, is complicity of a sort that risks unchecked evil spreading across the community. What’s more, it is exploitative as the pacifist presumes they won’t also become victimized because some other citizen will assume the personal risk to protect THEM.
In Trump’s case, do I want him dead? Not killed, I simply wish he was neutralized such that he could never serve in office. He was fairly elected. BUT if his intent is to steal the election and serve a third term and use the Iran war that he started as a pretext to stay in office like FDR, in other words to violate the Constitution and threaten our democracy by breaking the rules to become a dictator and Congress won’t impeach him (their Oath to the US Constitution), then he can’t be removed either. The normal standards of democracy will have failed (or he dismantled them) so it starts to resemble the Putin case which means he has to go too. If his intent is to leave at the end of his term or quit after the midterms because voters flipped Congress making him a lame duck president then I don’t want him dead – tricky.
Both of my votes were No, but I can’t deny, many years ago, being entertained by National Lampoon‘s take on the death of J. Edgar Hoover. A New Year’s Eve Times Square shot under the headline, A Nation Mourns.
I find it odious when reading or hearing wishes for a swift and painful demise. It’s an element of juvenilization of humanity, and decline of humanism.
This comment is not directly on topic, but it does relate to our common humanity and particularly with the power of empathy. It’s a film review, not the sort of opinions I usually inflict on WEIT readers, but maybe it will save you some time, money, and aggravation. I just got back from seeing Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, which I rate as “sucks to the bone” — minus 3 stars out of 5.
It is apparently an attempt to update Close Encounters of the Third Kind for today’s audiences. If it’s a smash hit then IMO that says something woeful about today’s audiences. I had liked Close Encounters; even though for a sci-fi film the sci was sorely lacking, it triumphed over that with the characters, the humour, the emotional arcs, the visuals, and the ear-worm. It was fun, even with the usual generous helpings of Spielbergian sentimentality.
But this overlong, pretentious, allegedly relevant retread has almost none of that. For a film whose updated message is that our capacity for empathy can maybe save us from ourselves (which I in fact do believe), there was very little of it in the story. The enhanced mental powers here are far more mind-reading and mind-control than emotional connection. And our willing suspension of disbelief was frequently abused by glaring plot holes.
Thank you for your indulgence. Writing this has helped me process some dark thoughts 🙂.
[SPOILERS!] So when The Good Guys & Girls, repeatedly surrounded at the front door by The Bad Guys, escaped via the back window several times, you found that a little too convenient?
I could only conclude that everyone on the assault team was a rookie and had slept through the training on establishing a perimeter. The first time I was annoyed; the second I was surprised; the third I was angry and muttering audibly about the insults to the audience’s intelligence. Hence my comment about today’s audiences. And do not get me started on the ridiculous l-o-n-g action sequence taken partly from Buster Keaton’s The General and other good movies.
And if there are recordings or transcripts of the pitch meetings that led to this garbage being made, I’d like to see them, expecting they’d be far more interesting than the movie itself. Maybe they could feature in a TV series, The Real Hacks of Hollywood.
“Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.”
-Winston Churchill
Remarks delivered in U.K. Parliament on October 13, 1943.
So I think this question highlights a problem in ‘incitement to violence’ part of Free Speech or cognitive liberty.
I recall a comment by Stephen Pinker to the effect that since only 75% of men will admit to wanting to kill someone we know that 25% of men are liars.