DeSantis, Trump, and the First Step Act
Earlier this week, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) made news by criticizing Donald Trump’s stance on criminal justice and claimed that if elected president, he would seek the repeal of Trump’s First Step Act (FSA). DeSantis characterized the FSA as a “jailbreak bill.” If someone were to ask me about DeSantis’ prospects of being elected president a few months ago, I would have argued that he is a much more effective version of Donald Trump. However, the more he speaks, it becomes abundantly clear that he does not quite grasp what made Trump popular and took him to the White House.
Interestingly, it is important to note just how similar DeSantis and extreme leftists are in their attacks on the FSA. Both let their need to be oppositional to Donald Trump guide their reasoning on whether or not the policy is worth supporting. After the FSA passed, Jacobin published a piece claiming that the policy did “far more harm to the incarcerated than good.” The arguments proffered in this piece suggested that recidivism is an umbrella term that encompasses serious crimes and technical violations of probation and parole, thus it is not wise to use recidivism as a metric of criminal justice success. Another argument in the piece is that because risk assessment tools use prior criminal history in recidivism predictions, it is oppressive and harmful. These arguments are less than persuasive, which is why most on the left support the FSA.
Attacking the FSA from the extreme right, DeSantis posits that it neglects the importance of rehabilitation, releases people from prison to commit more crimes, and is ultimately soft on crime. This is arrant nonsense. Also, DeSantis ignores the fact that the FSA received bipartisan support. By attempting to categorize Trump as being soft on crime on the basis of the FSA, he is inadvertently categorizing all of his Republican colleagues who supported it as being soft on crime, too. This is not wise alliance-building politics.
Objectively speaking, the FSA is an uncontroversial bill for a person with reasonable rightist or leftist politics to support, unless of course shackling pregnant women in prisons, being against bolstering efficacious reentry programs, and mandating draconian sentences for non-serious drug offenses are central to one’s political platform. In a debate with DeSantis on this subject, all Trump would need to do is simply list the uncontroversial, sensible legislative provisions of the FSA and force DeSantis to go on the record opposing each. It would be disastrous for the DeSantis campaign.
In his attempt to paint Donald Trump as soft on crime, DeSantis is taking a proven political strategy in American politics and misemploying it. For example, a policy of unmonitored furloughs for prisoners, including some serving life sentences—supported by then Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis—which allowed a murderer serving life in prison the opportunity to commit torture and rape was bad enough optically for George H. W. Bush’s accusations of Dukakis being soft on crime to stick back in the 1980s. Trump’s First Step Act is nothing of the sort, and attempting to paint it as soft on crime is comical.
Another section of the FSA that Trump would undoubtedly make DeSantis go on the record opposing are the provisions catered towards curtailing opioid addictions in prisons. While DeSantis has announced an opioid recovery program of his own, the optics of being against supporting this for Americans in prison are not good. This gets to the core of what made Trump popular with his base: As thoroughly nasty as Trump was to his political opponents (who would never vote for him) and as completely wicked as his rhetoric was about immigrants looking to come to America, he did his best not to be gratuitously nasty to the American people he wanted to vote for him. The opioid crisis has affected Americans greatly. A politician unwilling to extend grace to people in the criminal justice system with opioid addiction will not go over well with voters.
DeSantis’ attempt to paint Trump as soft on crime will backfire spectacularly, as all Trump will need to do is get specific about the provisions in the FSA, and force DeSantis to specify exactly which ones he wants to eradicate. DeSantis will also need to twist himself into a pretzel to explain to his fellow Republicans who supported the FSA that he does not believe they are soft on crime, but just Donald Trump is.
While it is not necessarily the case that consensus dictates correctness, there are some things that create consensus because they are manifestly correct. Going against the consensus requires strong, persuasive arguments. Without these arguments, one can often be left on the fringe being laughed at by sensible people in the middle. DeSantis’ opposition to the FSA will get him laughed off the debate stage. He should find another line of attack to avoid looking silly.