CONFLICTED...

 CONVFLICTED...

I don't want to be political. (Even tho I am, at heart; I was raised by two gov't employees in DC.) This blog is *not* about politics. I write crime fiction--'literary hood novels,' a friend once said--and there's no percentage in me alienating anybody. 

I don't want to be political.

But it's hard not to, right now, isn't it? All anyone talks about right now, is politics. It's become a constant buzzing in my ears, my email inbox, my social media feeds... Political tinnitus. And, like the vast majority of Americans, I *do* have strong feelings, this season especially.

Problem is, my feelings--my insights & observations--are prolly gonna just piss everyone off. 

First off, I *hate* Trump. This may be a popular position to occupy, with the literary folks I'm currently trying to suck up to, but it was an exceptionally unpopular attitude where I just came from. In prison, white guys are pretty much unanimous in their support for the Donald. (It's one of the few areas where convicts & COs find themselves in agreement--NASCAR & football being the others.) I wound up engaging in countless arguments over it, during my bid. Maybe it's a pet peeve, but I just *cannot* stand being lied to. Trump's habitual mendacity irks me to no end. Also, where Trump's surreptitious racism was immensely popular with my white-boy brethren, I was raised to find such attitudes disgusting (and embarrassing). 

Thing is, tho, the inmates have good reason to flock to Donald Trump. Even tho he only did it for Kim, he did sign the First Step Act, which gave nearly everyone on the yard at least a few weeks of freedom back. (Most of the rest of the FSA is a joke, by the way--and I'll do a blog on that sometime here shortly--but to an inmate, even seven days off a year is a valuable gift, and one that nobody else in Washington was stepping up to offer them.) I never had any luck persuading the guys that the legislation was mostly the result of other people's work--it'd been a while since any of them had seen that particular episode of Schoolhouse Rock, I guess.

But back to me... Donald Trump is clearly the worst president we've ever had; a danger to this country (which I used to love rather fervently, before it put me in a cage for *years* for a couple tablespoons of dope). As I watched the primary process unfold on the unit TV, I looked forward to getting home and being able to contribute in some small way to Trump's ousting. I was really hoping that, by now, I'd be knocking on doors for Bernie.

Best I can do, as it turns out (since I'm still tethered to my apartment by this ankle monitor), is volunteering a few hours a week to Resistance Labs texting & calling folks from home. Which I'm doing. But... I feel like a traitor doing it. You know why? 'Cause I don't like Biden, much, either.

There. I said it.

Joe Biden championed those bitch-ass crime bills that helped turn this country into the United States of Mass Incarceration. It's not just the '94 law, but two Anti-Drug bills ('86 & '88), that were arguably *worse,* intended to "hold every drug user accountable"--that's a direct quote. I think we all know now that that methodology was at best misguided, but very few of us have any real idea of the total harm caused by Biden's mandatory minimums, locking up addicts and the rest. (*I do.*)

Biden's current reform proposals do walk a lot of that Tough Tony bullshit back--but we have to take it on faith that he'll follow through. I'm not encouraged by his failure to support legalizing marijuana. (I got to know a few guys in the federal system doing multi-decade sentences for weed; I just can't conceptualize how that ever made sense.) I'd feel a lot better if it was Bernie, that's for damn sure.

So that's where I'm at right now. I'm forced to betray my own beliefs & best interests by supporting a candidate that has said I deserve to be locked away in prison for having had a drug problem--and (indirectly) put me there. 

Convicted, and now, conflicted.

But that's just how bad the other option--Trump--is. 

Go BIDEN/HARRIS 2020!!! (Sigh.)

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