#952: Running For POTUS From the Atlanta Penitentiary Ain’t Easy

Donald Trump, the nation’s 45th POTUS, is a person of many firsts:

The first man elected to the nation’s highest office without having ever having been elected to anything, or at least serving in a high military position . . . like Washington or Eisenhower.
The only president to be twice impeached.
The first president who was (supposedly) a billionaire.
The only sitting or past president to be to be the subject of four indictments covering 91 criminal charges across four separate jurisdictions.
The only president whose move to the White House constituted an act of downsizing.
The first president to have been divorced (in his case, twice).
The first candidate to admit having molested a dozens of women. - and then getting elected.
The first president who never owned a dog.
The first president who lied so many thousands of times before, during and after his presidency, that he all but single-handedly created an online industry.
The first president who fired the majority of his Cabinet secretaries - and in many cases, more than once.

Indeed, in terms of presidential history, DJT is the living, breathing example of sui generis (Latin for “of its own kind.” meaning, basically, that “there has never been anyone or anything like him in the past and [god willing], never will be in the future.”

“But hang on just a minute there,” I can hear you say; “you forgot a very important first . . . the first person to run for POTUS (assuming he wins the Republican nomination) while under criminal indictment . . . and perhaps the first presidential candidate to run while serving a prison sentence.” The second point, of course, depends on just how long his various trials last. At this point in time, and with Trump’s years-long legal strategy of delay-delay-delay, it is highly unlikely that he will be ensconced in, say the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, anytime in 2024.

But even if he were to be wearing an orange jumpsuit by then, he would not be the first incarcerated candidate in American history. Two men share that dubious distinction, although few know anything about it. The second was former Trotskyite, former Socialist, former Democrat and lifelong conspiratorial cult leader Lyndon LaRouche. Larouche (1922-2019) was a perennial presidential candidate who ran in every election from 1976 to 2004 as a candidate of third parties established by members of his cultic movement, the National Caucus of Labor Committees.

Eugene V. Debs: Presidential candidate, 1920

In the mid 1980s, LarRouche and some of his cultists were charged with conspiring to commit fraud and soliciting loans they had no intention of repaying. LaRouche and his supporters disputed the charges, claiming the trials were politically motivated. LaRouche was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. In 1992, while serving time at the Federal Medical Center, Rochester in Minnesota (where one of his cellmates was former televangelist Jim Baaker), LaRouche managed to run for president, garnering less than 75,000 votes.

The first of the two was Eurgene V. Debs. In his day, Debs (1855-1926) was one of America’s best-known and foremost labor leaders. A native of Terre Haute, Indiana, Debs ran for president on 5 occasions (1900, 1904, 1908. 1912, and 1920) as candidate of the Socialist Party of America. One of the founders (along with the Western Federation of Miners “Big Bill” Heywood and the Socialist Labor Party’s Daniel DeLeon) of the International Workers of the World (“Wobblies”) Debs was tried, convicted and sentenced to federal prison for violation of the Sedition Act of 1918. The act, which was enacted during the time of the infamous “Palmer Raids,” forbade "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt.

Debs, was against American involvement in what would become World War I, spoke out against then-President Wilson, and Attorney General Palmer, urged men to avoid conscription at all costs and repeatedly expressed the view that the European War was truly being fought on behalf of Capitalists so as to crush the working class of all nations . . . all things which put him in Wilson’s political doghouse and in violation of the newly-passed law. Debs presented his own defense (despite not being him attorney), calling himself as his only witness. In his testimony he told the court he said, in part:

I ask no mercy, I plead for no immunity. I realize that finally the right must prevail. I never more fully comprehended than now the great struggle between the powers of greed on the one hand and upon the other the rising hosts of freedom. I can see the dawn of a better day of humanity. The people are awakening. In due course of time they will come into their own.” The then 64-year old Debs was sentenced to 10 years at hard labor, to be served at, ironically, the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, and was disenfranchised (had his right to vote canceled) for life.

At his sentencing, when asked if he wished to speak, he gave a Christlike speech of a mere 70 words, “Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

As mentioned above, Debs ran for POTUS 5 times. Though he received increasing numbers of popular votes in each subsequent election, he never won any votes in the Electoral College. Although he was denied the right to vote in the 1920 presidential election, he did run from his cell; he wound up receiving 913,693 votes (3.4%), which remains the all-time high number of votes for a Socialist Party candidate in a US presidential election.

Hard labor was not kind to a man nearing the age of 65. Numerous attempts were made to get President Woodrow Wilson to grant him clemency, if not an outright pardon. Even A.G. Palmer urged him to do so as a humanitarian gesture; Wilson refused, making no public statements. On December 23, 1921, Wilson’s successor, the arch-Conservative Warren Gamliel Harding, commuted Debs’ sentence and invited him to come visit the White House, where they had a brief but cordial meeting. Harding, a simple, kindly but none too sophisticated a man issued a brief somewhat confusing statement after their meeting:

There is no question of his guilt. ... He was by no means, however, as rabid and outspoken in his expressions as many others, and but for his prominence and the resulting far-reaching effect of his words, very probably might not have received the sentence he did. He is an old man, not strong physically. He is a man of much personal charm and impressive personality, which qualifications make him a dangerous man calculated to mislead the unthinking and affording excuse for those with criminal intent. Debs returned home to Indiana, where he attempted to have his health restored. He died on October 26, 1926 at age 70 . . . the precise number of words he had spoken in his defense a few years earlier.

And now we come to Donald Trump, who may or may not become the 2nd man to run for POTUS from a jail cell (well, three if one counts the truly kooky Lyndon LaRouche). The only thing Debs and Trump have in common at this moment in history is that both were/are presumed to be innocent until being found guilty. The differences between them are as stark as night and day:

Where Trump’s favorite pronoun has always been “I”, Debs’ was obviously “we.”
Where Trump has taken to falsely proclaiming that whatever he has done is and was for the sake of his followers, Debs, a person of unsurpassed probity, was truly a man of the working classes.
To a great extent, what Debs stood for in both life itself and the political realm, was consistent, obvious, and has largely become the law of the land; in Trump’s case, no one really, truly knows what he stands for except personal power and self-aggrandizement. . . both of which are terribly difficult to legislate.
Debs was well known by both disciple and enemy alike for being a gentle, humble man; Trump, on the other hand is either worshipped as the Second Coming or looked upon as a disciple of Satan.
Outside of being convicted for violating the Sedition Act, Debs’ legal record was without blemish; Trump already stands accused of 91 criminal counts.
Debs was liked, loved and respected by many; Trump has few, if any friends.
Although he was incarcerated in one of the nation’s worst prisons - the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary - Debs continued to be of sound mind and continued his work; should Trump be sentenced to, ironically, the same prison, his very raison d'être will be diminished to the point of absolute disappearance and dismemberment . . .

. . . which brings to mind the final line of Richard Lovelace’s 17th century poem To Althea, From Prison:

Stone walls does not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage . . .