A Convicted Felon President Might be a Good Thing

Recently, former president and hopeful 2024 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies, yet he remains on the campaign trail. While Democrats, including President Joe Biden, are using the label “convicted felon” to further degrade Trump’s image, something about a convicted felon president is as American as it gets and could be a good thing for criminal justice reform.

A Country of Felons

On the daily basis, more than a good number of Americans break the law. It doesn’t have to be anything more than failure to stop at a light or picking up your favorite illicit narcotic. Some people loved weed so much, many states have legalized it. Crime is the American way, but some groups have suffered from the criminal justice system more than their counterparts, while those counterparts have flourished.

For instance, John Jacob Astor was an American businessman and the world’s first millionaire who made his fortune partly by illegally smuggling opium into China in 17th or 18th century. He’s talked about as if he was a legend, a shrewd businessman who knew how to make a buck quadruple. You’d struggle to find him referred to as a “drug dealer” or “thug” in any of the academic texts in which he’s mentioned. That part of his history is tucked away or glossed over, but Donald Trump’s can’t be hidden.

The Everyday Man

Donald Trump makes ill-informed statements, doubles down on ignorance and freely defends his actions, even when they’re wrong. And now he’s a 34-time convicted felon. That could turn off many voters, but it only adds to his mystique for the voters who too feel victimized and let down by a system they’ve deemed rigged from the beginning.

Donald Trump’s gripes are the gripes of millions of Americans across the country. When cops pull them over, they feel singled-out. They’ve been tried and convicted for actions like selling weed while others have been granted business licenses to sell the very same thing. They’ve been “felonized” if you will. That is, they’ve been tagged with a felony that prohibits them in participating in many parts of society. Felonies are also used as a stigma against a person’s character.

Trump’s predicament exposes something odd about the criminal justice system. As a 34-time convicted felon, Donald Trump can still run for and be president of the United States. But a person convicted of one felony can’t be a janitor and is routinely denied jobs based on that conviction, regardless of the person’s qualifications. So, the blaring question is, how is it a convicted felon can be president of our entire country but not a janitor at the chain store deli? Who benefits from this?

The Looking Glass Effect

Familiarity breeds compassion and leads to change. Former president Donald Trump was once seen as a great businessman who knew how to close a deal, regardless of the truth of that. Now, he sits a convicted felon in a party of Republicans wondering what to do now. Well, they should do what they always do when the same law that affect others affect them: change the law. Donald Trump’s conviction could start the needed overhaul of the criminal justice system around past convictions.

There should be an automatic expungement of felony records after 7 years of no prior convictions. There should be laws to expedite that timeframe based on educational achievements as well. As long as a faulty criminal justice system doesn’t hurt people like Trump or those who look like him, it can remain firmly intact and unchallenged. Now, we have the chance to elect a president who has a motive to make real changes to the criminal justice system.

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This article was written by Jermaine Reed, MFA, the Editor-in-Chief of The Reeders Block, who also works an Adjunct College Professor and director. Join the email list to get notifications on new articles and books. This article is 100% human-written. And remember, if you see an error, that’s what makes us human.