The Democrats have adopted a platform calling for an end to the death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment.
Thank God for your enemies.
Gallup tends to be better tuned in to public opinion than the DNC, and last October found the following: Solid Majority Continue to Support Death Penalty. As the article accompanying the poll recounts (emphasis added):
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- About six in 10 Americans favor the use of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder, similar to 2014. This continues a gradual decline in support for the procedure since reaching its all-time high point of 80% in 1994....
These results come from Gallup's annual Crime poll, conducted Oct. 7-11, 2015. While the public has, with one exception, favored the death penalty over the 78 years Gallup has asked this question, support for the measure has varied considerably. The low point for support, 42%, came in the 1960s, with support reaching its peak in the mid-1990s and generally declining since that point. Over the past decade, however, there has been minimal fluctuation in the percentage of adults who favor the death penalty, with support always at or above 60%.
With child butchers like Wendell Callahan and automated lynch artists like Dylann Roof out there -- and God only knows what future episode of Jihadist mass murder -- I can only hope the Democrats make abolishing capital punishment their Number One issue. They may yet find a way to lose.
Small but possibly important correction - the Democratic Party hasn't adopted the platform yet, and won't adopt any platform until later this week in Orlando. So that plank may or may not be in the final platform. It's interesting because it's not the position of the party's nominee, who supports the death penalty in some circumstances.
- Victor