On May 30, 2024, Donald Trump was convicted in a Manhattan courtroom on all 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal his affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Millions of Americans rightfully rejoiced because it’s not every day you get to see a former president — let alone the current, presumptive Republican nominee for president — become a convicted felon. In fact, it’s not any day because it’s never happened before in American history. Yet, a criminal conviction won’t mean for Donald Trump what it means for millions of poor Black and brown Americans who’ve had their rights to vote deliberately and systematically stripped away.
Trump’s conviction does not automatically disqualify him from running for president or voting, but many people wish it did. I have already read hundreds of tweets and comments on social media about how Trump should not be allowed to vote or run for president because he’s a convicted felon.
Felony disenfranchisement refers to stripping people convicted of felony crimes of their right to vote — a tool that America has used on a staggering number of Black people. At least 4.6 million Americans have been disenfranchised. In fact, a 2020 report from the Sentencing Project found that 1 in 16 of all voting-age Black people in America have been stripped of their right to vote using felony disenfranchisement. It is one of the most cruel and consistent ways the US legal system ensures that the people most impacted have no say.
And just as the Donald Trumps of the world don’t usually get prosecuted or convicted, they are not usually the victims of felony disenfranchisement and it will continue that way — even if lawmakers use this surge in enthusiasm for stripping people of their voting rights to put more draconian laws on the books or make it more difficult to challenge existing ones.
Part of the reason you’re so excited that Trump was convicted is that you’re surprised, and you’re surprised precisely because you know that in practice, rich, powerful, white men are very much above the law. We know that most people caught in the United States criminal justice system come from low-income backgrounds. And the prosecution of rich, powerful, white men will continue to be a rarity, just as it’s unlikely Trump will receive any prison time when he’s sentenced on July 11.
You might wish to see a tool like felony disenfranchisement weaponized against a rich, powerful, white man like Trump — to see actual consequences for an individual who has flagrantly, repeatedly acted in his own interest and caused real harm.
The truth is that while Trump is allowed to run for president, it shouldn’t be feasible that he’ll be able to be elected president. It should be hard to imagine how a man who has been impeached twice, who at least half the country perceives as a threat to democracy, and who many believe is a white supremacist, is still able to garner the support of millions of Americans and one of the two major political parties. Sadly, it’s not hard to imagine because this is America.
The reason you want Donald Trump to have the right to run for president and the right to vote stripped away is that you can’t be certain he won’t become president again. You can’t be certain that millions of Americans won’t vote for a man who has made countless offensive, derogatory remarks, passed reprehensible policies, arguably incited an insurrection, been sued hundreds of times, and found liable for sexual abuse.
Famously, Trump once ran a full-page ad in the New York Times calling on five Black boys — “the Central Park Five” — to be executed by the state for crimes they’ve now been exonerated for. It’s gratifying to see the man who has evaded accountability at every turn receive even the tiniest fraction of what he’s doled out. People are entitled to rejoice but don’t rejoice so much that you unwittingly become advocates of felony disenfranchisement and the expansion of the prison industrial complex.
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