In a landmark victory for the Trump administration and thousands of incarcerated Americans, the Senate passed the bipartisan First Step Act with a staggering 87 votes. Consider, two years of total Republican control, the federal government failed to build the wall, have Mexico pay for it, or repeal and replace Obamacare. But Trump is slated to sign the most sweeping reforms to prison standards and sentences in a generation before the year’s end.
Democrats quick to spar with the president over his rhetoric and impulses could learn a thing or two on how to navigate the next two years. The First Step Act is Christmas come early not just for those incarcerated, but also for Americans wishing for nonviolent offenders to assimilate back into civil society instead of fall back into recidivism. But it’s not a part of a partisan agenda. And the lack of harsh partisanship could wind up being a feature, not a bug of the Trump administration, if Democrats play their cards right.
The only consistent thread in Trump’s ideology, stemming from his days as a Manhattan Democrat through his presidency, is his penchant for protectionism. Otherwise, he can be swayed to almost anything by emotional appeals. And, as a number of reports about the path to the First Step Act reveal, appeals to pathos can flip Trump on an issue.
Jared Kushner, whose own father spent a little over a year in prison for a number of white-collar crimes, drove the primary push within the Trump administration. Though Kushner tends to avoid public statements, he’s given a number of revealing interviews with commentators as diverse as Trump devotee and Fox News host Sean Hannity to former Obama staffer and CNN host Van Jones. In an interview with Jones, Kushner explained in part how he won over his “tough on crime” father-in law.
“How these [incarcerated] people — they obviously have problems, that’s why they commit crimes in the first place and then they leave prison with the scarlet letter of having a criminal record. Their skills have atrophied. Their connections with community have grown further apart. And they’re not trained to become productive members. So what do you expect them to do?” Kushner said. “Right? So most of them will commit crimes, and the president got that. And then somebody in the meeting said to him, when you campaign, you said that you’re going to fight for the forgotten men and women of this country, and there’s nobody more forgotten or underrepresented than the people in prison.”
Evidently, the appeal worked, especially bolstered by celebrity support and designating a new face for reform: Instead of Willie Horton, who left prison on a weekend pass and victimized another person, Trump was introduced to nonviolent, first-time offender Alice Marie Johnson by Kim Kardashian West, as a new CNN report details.
Some may mock that it took a celebrity to turn our celebrity president around on the issue, but Democrats should find the matter instructive, not comical. Anecdotal evidence works on most people; on issues that don’t strictly involve protectionism, it will probably work on Trump.
Of course the prison reform push was bolstered by the successes in Republican states like Texas and the libertarian leanings of conservative stalwart Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. Although an incomplete Congressional Budget Office report anticipates that the bill will cost taxpayers $346 million over the next decade — while reducing the federal prison population by over 50,000 people — Texas saved over $4 billion from 2006-2016 thanks to similar reforms. So practicality and the actual potential for bipartisan support does matter.
But bipartisanship won last night. Democrats would be wise to study the reasons and take advantage.
