People in My Prison Want More from the Democrats. Here’s Why.

At 6:40 AM, a prison staff member pulled me out of my morning haze. She walked down the hallway shouting.

“Trump! Trump! Trump!” she hollered.

It was the morning after last November’s election. I was just starting my daily prison job, which pays only a few dollars per day. I stared at the employee, whose face radiated glee. She pumped her fist and exclaimed joy over the man who’d just been declared our 47th president. She reminded me of a child on Christmas morning.  

In her mind, it might as well have been a holiday. She is a middle-aged white woman who has little reason to fear the harm Trump could cause. She was the exact person Trump claims to represent. From the look in her eyes, you could see she finally felt heard. As the day progressed, it became clear that that woman wasn’t the only happy prison staffer.

I was trying to process what this win meant for us incarcerated people and the rest of the country. Personally, I didn’t like either of the candidates. But I know Trump could cause significant, generational harm to the nation. His last presidency’s attacks on women, immigrants, and abortion made this clear.

Throughout the day, I spoke to other men living in my unit. Surprisingly, most of the men I talked to weren’t necessarily happy Trump had won—but were glad Kamala Harris had lost. At first, I assumed this was because Harris was a former prosecutor in California. It’s no shock that the people inside a prison aren’t rooting for the sort of person who put them there. 

But on further analysis, it was clear the men’s distaste went deeper. They’re dissatisfied with a Democratic Party that leaves imprisoned people behind and demonizes us as monsters when it benefits them. 

This made me wonder: Have the Democrats lost our community’s vote?

Many of the people I spoke to freely expressed their frustrations with Democrats. They were tired of broken promises. The party refuses to restructure a carceral system that costs billions without making people safer. Instead, the Democrats helped shepherd the return of 90 ‘s-era fear-mongering over “violent crime. Many candidates have pushed for harsher prison sentences—which didn’t work the first time and will surely fail again. Plus, the chaotic economy hurt us, too. Prices spiked at our prison commissaries. 

But what came up most of all was the message Democrats have used for three presidential elections in a row: “Vote for us because we are not Trump.” Many instead wanted to know about the party’s policies and how candidates were going to address issues facing the country—homelessness, equality, racism, the economy, drug addiction, mass incarceration, and more. The men I spoke to wanted a more substantial message than just, “Vote for me because I’m not him.”

I asked a prisoner in my unit, Dwuan Spraggans-Conroy, how he thought we got here and who was to blame. Spraggans-Conroy, a military veteran who has served 12 years, jumped to answer before the question finished leaving my lips.

“Bernie Sanders would have easily beat Trump,” he said. “Which would have stopped him from ever building a base of MAGA supporters. But Democrats painted Bernie as a socialist who would destroy the structure of our democracy and collapse our economy. But now look what we’re dealing with.”

He called Trump a narcissist who is willing to rip apart our democracy in order to fatten his pockets. But he blamed the Democratic Party for failing to work in the public’s interest. 

“And now they’ll reap what they sow,” he said. “And maybe that’s just what we need to get back on track.”

The imprisoned men I spoke to also zeroed in on the Harris campaign’s choice to demonize Trump as a “convicted felon.” The strategy put off incarcerated people, who are also labeled “bad” and “dangerous” by society. Many of us also come from impoverished communities of color, which endure similarly harmful messages.

“This was a complete deflection from what should have been the main focus,” a man named Antoine Davis told me. Davis, who’s been imprisoned for 15 years, said he would have preferred if the Democrats just focused on the harm Trump could do moving forward.

“I have done a lot of things I’m not proud of, but I am more than those mistakes today,” Davis said. “This is what I hate about politics—it’s always about what someone did, or possibly did, in the past. I need to know what you plan to do moving forward. People’s past is just that: the past. You cannot demonize someone forever.”

My conversations convinced me that if we want to prevent someone like Trump from taking office, we must play offense, not defense. Democrats need to focus on what they plan to do for us and our country. Don’t just focus on demonizing a bad actor, even if it is deserved. It is time we demand more than one party acting as the lesser of two evils.

In the wake of Trump’s win, Americans are understandably angry. People want to blame someone or something for what happened. A friend of mine told me he read a Tweet the other day that said, “I hope that Latinos who voted for Trump get deported!” 

But this kind of anger is misdirected and harmful. We must remember that we got here because the Democratic Party refused to listen to people who feel left behind and unheard. As an incarcerated person, I understand those feelings far too well. This election should teach politicians to listen to people who supported Trump and help solve their problems in ways that don’t engender hate, pain, and fear. If not, the divide between us will become an uncrossable chasm.

In the short term, the damage is done. We must now focus on protecting vulnerable people during the next four years and lay the groundwork so we don’t end up in this position again. As we move forward, though, we must carry one lesson with us: The Democrats’ current game plan will no longer work.