How to oppose the death penalty without seeming soft on crime

The year was 1992, and Republican President George H. W. Bush was running for re-election at the end of what was generally regarded at the time as a disastrous term in office. His backers still had an ace in the hole – or so they thought. President Bush’s challenger in the general election was Arkansas Democratic Governor Bill Clinton, a man who had a notorious reputation for cheating on his wife. How did Republicans capitalize on this? They sent a message to the American people that they should vote for Bush because he was the candidate that supported family values.

Needless to say, Democrats realized that they had to do something about this if Clinton was to have any chance to unseat Bush. So what did they do? Well, as at the time Democrats controlled both houses of the Federal legislature, they passed the Family and Medical Leave Bill which, if signed into law, would require several employers to give their employees job-protected leave in the event that it was required by qualifying medical or family demands. As they expected, Bush vetoed the bill.

So what did they achieve in this process? They demonstrated to the American people that though Bush may have conducted himself in a more family-friendly and wholesome manner in his personal life, he was not the candidate who supported family values in any manner that would have meaningful impact on the American people. This took the wind out of the sails of the Republicans’ “family values” pitch, thereby making it possible for Clinton to become the 42nd President of the United States.

In essence, what happened was that the Republicans attempted to present their candidate as being the strong candidate in an area of importance to the American people – and Democrats successfully responded by showing that the Republican candidate was only best for those issues in ways that would not really help Americans, and the Democratic candidate was best for those issues where it truly counted as far as benefiting the American people was concerned.

As Democrats did in 1992 on the matter of family values, in 2020 it will be time for Democrats to do it again on another issue – toughness on crime. Last month Governor Gavin Newsom of California signed an executive order that placed a moratorium on the death penalty in his state. Immediately, several other leading Democrats joined him in announcing their opposition to the death penalty. While not all Republicans support the death penalty (there are some conservatives who are in fact against it) there are a lot of Republicans who favor it including current President Donald Trump, who is most likely to be the Republican whom the Democratic nominee will be up against in the general election.

These Republicans are seizing upon Democratic opposition to the death penalty as an opportunity to present Democrats as being soft on crime. Clearly, Democrats can not allow this to go unabated if the goal is to unseat Trump in the 2020 election. So what must Democrats do? They must show to the American people that there are better ways to be tough on crime than to support the death penalty, that those other ways of being tough on crime will benefit the American people far more than support of the death penalty, and that it is the Democrats who can be counted on to be tough on crime in those more important ways.

For starters – claiming that someone is tough on crime because they support the death penalty is so absurd as to be a joke. It would actually be funny if the stakes weren’t so high. Some people might think that it is an effective deterrent against crime – but an overwhelming consensus of criminologists (you know, the people who actually study crime scientifically) they beg to differ with that view. As a matter of fact, according to a page on the web-site of the Death Penalty Information Center, the death penalty may actually reduce our safety by draining much-needed resources from other, far more effective crime-fighting strategies. Considering this, any politician who claims credit for being “tough on crime” on the basis of them supporting the death penalty is either a fool or a swindler.

However, merely presenting this rational appeal is not enough to effectively counter the attempt at portraying politicians who oppose the death penalty (most, though not all, of whom are Democrats) as being soft on crime. One needs to show to the American people that there are other, tangible, better ways of getting tough on crime – and that the Democratic candidates are the ones who are most likely to support those superior measures.

What can Democrats, anti-death-penalty Democrats specifically, do to show that they are the ones who are truly tough on crime? They can craft legislation targeting areas of crime that progressives have for a long time been demanding that society address effectively. One such area is rape – especially (but not exclusively) campus rape. The process of prosecuting someone for rape is known to be a great ordeal on a victim. According to mathematical computations based on statistics provided on a page by RAINN, all that one can expect to show for such an ordeal is a 2.2% chance of a rape that is reported to police resulting in a felony conviction and just a 2% chance of the rapist actually getting incarcerated.

Of course, some of the rapists who walk do so because, like any crime, rape isn’t always possible to prove beyond the reasonable doubt. However, that excuse can only fly when the rape allegation is taken seriously enough to be properly investigated by the authorities. Too often, though, that isn’t so, and the rape allegation is treated very dismissively from the get-go. Anyone who comes up with a good plan to fix this would have a much better claim to the coveted “tough on crime” badge than someone who supports the death penalty. Also, better systems of reporting rapes and better response during the hours immediately after the incident, such as better availability of rape kits (kits to recover forensic evidence of rape) would no doubt increase the probability of a rape being able to be convicted beyond the reasonable doubt. If you want to be tough on crime, try seeing to measures such as those.

There are plenty of other opportunities to be tough on crime in manners far more effective and beneficial to the American people than supporting the death penalty. What about the disparity between incarceration rates for similar crimes based on economic class, race, and so forth? Maybe an anti-death-penalty Democrat can show toughness on crime by cracking down on instances in which rich, white people escape justice for crimes that they would have done hard time for were they not rich and white.

With all these far superior ways of being tough on crime, Democrats have several opportunities to put Republican “tough on crime” credentials on the spot the way Bush’s “family values” credentials were put on the spot in 1992. Democrats should craft bills that seize on such opportunities and get those bills passed in the House of Representatives. Force Mitch McConnell to choose between letting it come to a vote versus going on record blocking it. And if he lets it come to a vote, let the Senate Republicans choose between themselves going on record blocking it – versus putting it on Trump’s desk for him to veto.

If Republicans want to seize upon Democratic opposition to the death penalty to make Democrats look soft on crime – then all Democrats have to do is play their cards right to make the Republicans regret it.