What Convicts Think About the Presidential Race

There was an article in Slate a few days ago, about how incarcerated people view the presidential race, and Trump’s felony conviction in particular. It is a serious article, which reports that many convicts, especially white convicts, are pro-Trump, but it reminds me of a hilarious column from eight years ago.

That column was based on a controversy about voting (I think that, in a particular state, ex-cons who had served their sentences were allowed to vote, which the Republicans objected to). Perhaps a Democratic politician had said that Republicans were free to appeal to the ex-con vote. The columnist was a real wit, writing a Republican appeal to criminals serving their time, using slang, and informing the intended audience that Hillary Clinton had denounced crime, and done things like working with Mexico to crack down on drug cartels. “Do you want someone like that in the White House?” Trump, by contrast, had a record of criminal associations and sleazy dealing, like the time he tried to use eminent domain to grab a widow’s home as part of a parking lot for his casino. The column admitted that “some wack judge” had prevented seizure of the widow’s home from going through, but still.

There is a Nancy button saying, “I know that life imitates art, but must it imitate satire?” In this case, it does.