How Cory Booker Helped Trump

Trump Is Hijacking Your Crime Bill Concerns

Dear Senator Booker,

As we mourn the death of John Lewis and find ourselves outraged by racist crimes against the Black community, your call to unite on common ground inspires us to resist the dark forces that divide us.

Yet as I write to you, the “Trump War Room” is spending millions on TV ads targeting the Black community with your own words, taken out of context. They’re telling voters to: Text ‘woke’ to 88022. That text goes to Trump’s War Room which begins profiling the voter who texted ‘woke.’ Knowing that your own words are being used to inflame voters — especially Black voters — to turn against Democrats and toward Trump must distress you most of all. Knowing such attacks will continue, many of us are alarmed.

Given the importance of Black voters and your standing with the Black community, we must admit that if the race tightens, your words — Joe Biden was “an architect of mass incarceration,” — could make a night-and-day difference on November 3, 2020.

Unfortunately, these words are interpreted as an accusation that Joe Biden committed a most horrible, premeditated racist offense — that he ruined hundreds of thousands of Black lives in order to buy a few racist votes for Democrats.

Given Joe’s life story, this is hard to swallow. And I’m sure you agree, for you have said, “I sincerely love Joe Biden.” Fortunately, you can counteract the risk posed by Trump’s misuse of your words.

The Crime Bill Myth

We have all been sold the myth of the 1994 crime bill that’s partly true and partly sinister. Stop for a moment and consider the myth — these points in particular:

1. The intent of the 1994 crime bill’s supporters was racist (wrong)
2. In practice, the effect of the 1994 crime bill was racist (wrong)
3. Had the bill not passed, fewer Blacks would have been incarcerated (wrong)

The fact that the points are mistaken is good news for two reasons. First, this provides a clear and honest way to refute Trump’s War Room. Second, as you advocate, it unites the party on common ground.

Consider the first point. As you likely know, the 1994 crime bill was supported by two-thirds of the Congressional Black Caucus, including its chairman Kweisi Mfume. Also, ten Black big-city mayors backed the bill. None were racist and they were not fools. So they would never have backed a horribly and deliberately racist bill.

Forty prominent Black ministers wrote a most heartfelt letter expressing their concern for their parishioners who were the victims of a horrendous crime wave. Their final point concerned “nine-year-olds like James Darby of New Orleans, who was killed by a stray bullet only days after writing a plea to President Clinton to stop the violence.”

A majority of all Blacks (58% according to Gallup), and especially black leaders, supported the bill. And Joe Biden supported the Black community as he always has. (Documentation is here.)

Now consider points #2 and #3. The statistics you have heard are for “mass incarceration” without any distinction between Black and White. Because the White population is much larger, this statistic does not always reflect the reality of the Black community. The key number, Black incarceration, has been omitted by a lazy press, but it is available.

The true statistics are shocking — in a good way.

Black incarceration rate (per 100,000) spiked for 20 years before Biden’s bill was passed. But the year after the bill passed, that accelerating upward trend slowed dramatically and stopped in just five years. This result is found in the most comprehensive report on mass incarceration, produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Surprisingly, the White rate of incarceration fared worse. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, it was rising slower than the Black rated before the bill passed, but afterward, it slowed much less. According to DOJ, the Black rate stopped increasing by 2001 and then started to fall, while the White rate continued to rise until at least 2009. (Documentation is here.)

Although the bill contains errors, forced by Republicans, as well as honest mistakes, there is simply no evidence that the effect of Biden’s bill was to “destroy communities like your own.” There is no evidence that it was, on balance, racist. And there is no indication that it caused more Blacks to be imprisoned than without the bill.

The Black leadership and community appear to have been right that the net impact for the Black community would be positive, although not nearly what was needed. The Black ministers listed the reasons: $8 billion to fund prevention programs; drug treatment; programs to fight violence against women;  banning assault weapons; and “putting 100,000 well-trained police officers on the streets of our most violence-plagued communities.”

Some will find this strange, but let me remind you of something you said in your 2017 book. “Now, bad guys do need to be locked up. We need more cops. But that is not enough.” This is exactly what Democrats and the Black community thought in 1994, while the Republicans curbed the prevention programs and called them “crime pork.”

Senator Booker, we’re sure you would hate to see Trump get away with using your words to call Joe Biden a racist.

We ask that you support Vice President Biden by rejecting the myth’s implications that the 1994 crime bill caused mass incarceration or made it worse and that he was not aligned with most Black leaders of the day.

You are the only one who can do this. It will take courage, but you are known for your courage. But in the end, you will be seen as a hero by millions for resisting Trump. And they will be right.