 Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton once again is fear-mongering and this time he is concerned trolling about a spike in crime, specifically he shared an article from CNN that states that the homicide rate in the United States has increased by 33%. Now the article itself doesn't necessarily state what causal factor is leading to an increase in homicide rates, it speculates that it could be the pandemic or an increase in gun crimes, but regardless, Tom Cotton knows the solution to this problem. He tweeted out, we have a major under-incorceration problem in America and it's only getting worse. So the answer to this increase in crime is to just jail more people. Yes, because that's worked out so well for us up until this point. Now before I actually get to the responses to Tom Cotton because he was ratioed into oblivion, I just want to take some time to remind you that Tom Cotton is a fascist and an authoritarian. When Donald Trump signed the First Step Act into law, which is a criminal justice reform bill, it doesn't nearly go far enough, but it's a step in the right direction. Tom Cotton actually criticized Donald Trump for signing that bill into law, saying it was too lenient. So let's put things in a perspective. Tom Cotton is to the right of a far right president when it comes to restorative justice. And on top of that, I'm sure that you'll all recall that just last year he wrote an op-ed for the New York Times, where he called on then-President Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to violently shut down Black Lives Matter protests. So if Tom Cotton had his way, we would be living in a fascist, authoritarian police state. That's what he wants. Time after time. He's indicated that that's exactly what he wants to see. So I think that we should take him at his word when he tells us who he is. We should believe him. He's a fascist. He's an authoritarian. Now, I do want to share some of the responses to this because it didn't take much effort for the internet to completely dismantle his arguments with vaccine logic. So one person shared a comparison of prison population rates. And obviously this shows that the United States jails far more people than the next biggest jailers combined. Now, this person pointed out how looking specifically at Arkansas, Tom Cotton's home state, Arkansas has one of the highest rates of incarceration in America and actually has a higher incarceration rate per capita than many countries, believe it or not. So the issue is that we have an incarceration problem in America, not that we have an under incarceration problem and just applying a one size fits all solution to crime. I mean, by now we should have learned our lesson, right? And I also don't have to tell you that in the event, let's say, hypothetically speaking, there was this wave of hysteria over an increase in the crime rates because of fear mongers like Tom Cotton. Who would be the most affected by that? We all know disproportionately black and brown people would be jailed at higher rates than white people. It's already the case that black and brown Americans are more likely to be locked up than whites. They received longer sentences than their white peers for the same crimes. And they're also far more likely to be arrested for drug use, even though they're as likely as their white peers to use drugs at the same rates. And part of the reason why they get locked up at a higher race than white people for the same crimes is because black and brown neighborhoods are policed more so than white neighborhoods. In fact, black and brown neighborhoods are overpoliced with the things that this isn't a flaw in our criminal justice system. It's not some unintended consequence that we're only finding out about. This is a feature of our criminal justice system. Our criminal justice system is explicitly white supremacist. But here's the thing, Tom Cotton may be a fascist. He may be an authoritarian, but he's aware of this. He knows this. And that's the point, I think. I think he wants more black and brown people to be arrested, which is why many people pointed out the fact that him saying we need to jail more people is a racist dog whistle, because he knows what's going to happen if he gets his way. More black and brown people will be jailed. Now, in spite of the occasional spikes in crime, the overall trends tell you a completely different story. So since the 1990s, violent crime and property crime has actually decreased substantially. Now, the homicide rate has also been historically low, although the CNN article does say that it increased by 33 percent. But if he read the article that he shared, there's a number of reasons that they state this may be the case. They can't find any one causal mechanism, but one of the contributing factors that they lay out is gun violence. Now, we all know that Tom Cotton doesn't actually want to do anything about gun violence. He doesn't want any background checks. He doesn't want any legislation whatsoever that might curtail gun ownership, even for people who very clearly should not have guns. So I don't think we're going to get a response about that. Additionally, they also argue in this article that perhaps the pandemic exacerbated existing social issues and economic issues, and that could have contributed to the spike. Although, again, this is all to speculation. And the article also speculates that another reason why we may have seen an increase in crime is because police departments had to reallocate resources and personnel to the Black Lives Matter protests last year. And, you know, that took time away from them policing high crime areas. And also, since there's so many, you know, defund the police efforts, police morale is low. And on top of that, if we're defunding police departments, then obviously they can't do their job as effectively, and that's leading to an increase in crime. Now, that particular portion of this article is complete horseshit because in order to speculate about whether or not defund the police or Black Lives Matter protests were responsible for an increase in crime, they just cite police commissioners and police departments verbatim. OK, not the most persuasive hypothesis. Nonetheless, the point of the article is that homicide rates are up and crime overall has increased. But we don't necessarily know what the cause of this is. And furthermore, historically speaking, in comparison to the 70s and the 80s, crime is still low overall. But what Tom Cotton is doing is trying to use this article as a justification to further crack down on Americans, specifically Black and Brown Americans. And I mean, this is him stating fully and intentionally that he wants to live in a police state. It's already the case that the United States of America is basically a police state. When you look at how many people we jail in comparison with other developed nations, I would be ashamed if I was a US senator at these statistics. I'd be ashamed that my country, as opposed to democracy, jails so many people and that we haven't immediately changed our criminal justice system as a result of this embarrassment as a result of historic racism in this country. But he's proud of it and he thinks we should go further. If that doesn't tell you everything that you need to know about Tom Cotton, then I don't know what to say. The man is a fascist and an authoritarian and he is exponentially worse than Donald Trump. And we should never allow him to get anywhere near a higher position of power, because if he had his way again, America would be far worse than it is right now.