Part of the Series
Beyond the Sound Bites: Election 2016
Hillary and Bill Clinton in Chappaqua, New York, on May 25, 2015. Each played a role in creating some of the disastrous policies that have fueled mass incarceration. (Photo: Barbara Kinney / Hillary for America)
Election years are loud. From the shows we tune into during our morning routines to the Facebook feeds we scroll through before we doze off in bed, there seems to be an endless yammering of campaign talking points desperate to convince us to vote for one candidate over the other. These aren’t just any talking points though. These are election-year talking points — countlessly rewritten, rigorously tested on focus groups and heavily paid for. What tends to get left out during this political fermentation process is arguably the most important and, unsurprisingly, the most sobering: the historical context and the numbers.
The country that sees itself as the “leader of the free world” also has the word’s highest rate of imprisonment. Over the past few years, calls for reform in the criminal legal system and law enforcement have taken center stage in the public consciousness. Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been quick to incorporate these calls into promising talking points, often omitting the role Hillary and Bill Clinton played in creating some of the disastrous policies that fueled mass incarceration, which has had a particularly deep impact on Black Americans. Here is some important historical context and some sobering numbers you were supposed to miss, in a not so miss-able infographic.
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We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.
Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”
Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.
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