The Dastardly President Trump

For John, BLUF:  It is going to be interesting between now and 3 November.  Buy more popcorn and enjoy the show.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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On Criminal Justice, Biden Has No Moral Standing Over Trump

From New York Magazine, by Reporter Zak Cheney-Rice, 8 March 2020.

Here is the excerpt Professor Althouse started with:

Trump is going to try dampening black voter enthusiasm for Biden by contrasting the two men’s criminal justice records.  The framing will be simple:  Trump signed a bipartisan criminal-legal reform bill, the First Step Act, and has been generous with his pardon powers toward unjustly imprisoned black people, like Alice Marie Johnson.... ...Trump’s status as a self-styled reformer is laughable, [but] Biden’s record is grotesque.  Most of its lowlights occurred in the 'tough on crime' 1980s and 1990s... [when] he viciously characterized people who commit crimes as sociopathic 'predators' who are beyond rehabilitation.  He cast then-President Bush’s escalation of the War on Drugs as lacking 'enough police officers to catch the violent thugs, enough prosecutors to convict them, enough judges to sentence them, or enough prison cells to put them away for a long time.  He authored the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act [that]... expanded the death penalty, eliminated education funding for imprisoned students, created harsher sentencing guidelines for a wide range of crimes, and increased funding for local police departments and corrections departments....  Perhaps more than any other official of the era, he embodied the Democratic impulse to outflank Republicans from the right by locking more people in jails and prisons.  He helped catalyze the most dramatic expansion of the carceral state in the history of the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world.  He said he was 'not at all' ashamed of his involvement as recently as 2016....

First point.  Our incarceration rate is very high.  Second point.  It may well be driven by the welfare reforms of the 1960s, as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynahan told us a half a century ago.

The third point is that to Progressive writers the President seems to have some sort of Midas touch, in that everything he touches turns out bad, even when it is better than his Democratic Party opponents.  I frankly don't care if his actions are from a desire for justice reform or are from political calculation.  Either way we get to a better place.

I would observe that the President does seem to be playing this game at several levels, while his opponents are playing at a single level.  Does he prefer his opponent be Senator Sanders or does he prefer it be former Vice President Biden?  Or does he really want former SecState Hillary Clinton?  Or is he indifferent, but enjoys watching the speculation, like entertaining himself by throwing a twig to a little puppy on a lazy afternoon?

In the end the Progressive journalists will think that President Trump is sneakily stealing Black voters by offering them things.  Things like jobs, better wages, less police abuse, better criminal justice outcomes.  They will follow Miss Greta Thunberg and say, "How dare you!"

Hat tip to Ann Althouse.

Regards  —  Cliff