Does the correlation work?

Here’s an interesting take on the Trump indictments by an economics prof writing at Compact.

= = = = = START QUOTE:

Observers have been surprised that the indictments themselves haven’t done more to dent his support. Put differently, why isn’t the lawfare against Trump working yet?

Part of the answer might lie in this fact: 77 million Americans have criminal records, meaning they have at least been arrested. Many of these people may find themselves identifying with the 45th president because of their own experiences of being accused, arrested, charged, and forced to defend themselves.

= = = = = END QUOTE.

More specifically, 50% of young black men and 40% of young white men have been arrested for something. These are Trump’s biggest fans, leaving aside the Evangelical cultists who are totally fooled by Trump’s transparent fakery.

I can’t judge or guess the feelings of others. The demographic correlation seems reasonable, but would need more surveying and listening to establish a specific cause.

= = = = =

Does this connection work for me? Fuck no. It’s the exact opposite. I spent a year in jail in 1969 for possession of the wrong plant, which later became not only legal but favored. I was framed by a “friend” who got me arrested to save his own ass, but nevertheless I was violating the written laws at the time and I knew it.

Trump is being unfairly targeted and framed for doing things that every politician and rich fuckhead does. He read classified documents, which every president is specifically authorized and required to do. He evaded taxes, which every billionaire and Repooflican does all the time. Repoofs consider tax evasion to be the highest virtue.

This targeting is routine at higher levels. Top leaders are held in check by blackmail, and top leaders are taken down by personalizing their own commission of the same crimes that all leaders commit every hour of every day. We’re supposed to think the scandals are unique.

The injustice is the other way around. Trump is NOT being prosecuted or even questioned for the biggest crime in human history, which WAS a unique and unprecedented atrocity. He imprisoned and strangled and tortured and closed down the entire country for two years, causing immense suffering and death.

My prison experience probably made me MORE sensitive to this particular injustice. Ever since leaving the walls, I’ve been “triggered” by any situation that resembles prison again.

Trump is the imprisoner and accuser, not the imprisoned and accused.