One of the most dreadful memories from my childhood in Iran are the announcements about public executions. I was fortunate enough to not have actually watched any of them, but I remember the more curious ones of my classmates actually planning on attending some, and then speaking with so much horror about them afterwards. This was middle school, and we weren’t even 15. It felt like living inside a horror movie, but even back then probably some of us knew that they were part of the regime’s intimidation tactics; part of what helped it to gain such a strong grip on the society that, even if most of those initial executions were legally justified and of truly criminal individuals, when the government turned into executing its political enemies, very few had the courage to speak up.

Fast forward some 40 years, and thousands of miles away, hearing about the administration’s plans for live streaming a military execution by a firing squad, takes me back to those horrifying days in Iran. The difference, however, is that that one was decades ago, in a country that wasn’t particularly known for honoring progressive and humanitarian ideas, and this one is in the year 2026, and in the United States, a country that, despite still allowing for capital punishment, has explicit laws against photographing or recording the scenes of execution. Note that this is not about that person and whether he is a criminal or not. He is responsible for killing 13 service members. I am not in any way defending what he has done. I am talking about the lasting effects that watching an execution will have on the people, especially the ones as young as I was at the time of the public executions in Iran I mentioned above.

Some of my friends will dismiss this comparison as being absurd, but give it a thought, just for a few minutes: remember what the Iranian regime was promising before taking power, and what happened afterwards, remember how they created a second military, the revolutionary guards, to make sure they were all loyal to the supreme leader, remember how they took control of the media and banned any criticism of the supreme leader even as a joke, and yes, remember how they held public executions and how they helped them with their agenda. Now compare the above with the empty promises of lowering grocery prices and bringing back manufacturing jobs. Compare it with the overhaul and formation of the new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency with an annual budget that dwarfs the entire military budgets of several large countries combined, and with a new hiring process that emphasizes loyalty to the president’s agenda and skips several of the once mandatory trainings. Compare it with the cancellations of some of the late night political satire shows that have been too critical of the president. And yes compare it with the planned public execution in December.

Honestly, don’t you see any parallels?