And now a word from our candidates for governor:

Black people, crime, crime, black people, enough is enough, lock’em up, throw away the key, hold everybody accountable, take back our streets. What about the T word? Can we break it out? Is it too early? Thug that is. Their dog-whistled name. Not yet? Okay. Let’s wait until election day gets closer.

Even Shawn Wilson (former Secretary of Transportation And Development Shawn Wilson, a democrat) has gotten in on the act, though in more holistic terms. Besides being tough on crime, he talks of working together with police, judges, social workers, psychologists, kids, and parents “to help solve the problems in communities where the crime actually exists.”

Apparently, going hard on crime has become the cost to get into the game. State Attorney General Jeff Landry has set the tone. “I’m holding everybody and I mean everybody accountable,” says Landry. State Treasurer John Schroder says, “We cannot allow criminals to cripple our communities.” And soon expect the rest of the field to ante up with their own stale rhetoric. Who’d want to be known as a softee on crime? Tough on crime gets people elected in the South.

Luckily, besides Landry and Schroder there’s no other major Republican contenders with stakes in the game. Otherwise, when it became apparent that some candidate was on the verge of wasting millions of dollars of other people’s money, this mild mannered lock’em up and throw away the key might’ve escalated into desperate heaves of bring back the firing squad or electric chair.

Governor’s Race Is Off to A Stereotypical Start

But unluckily for us, there’s no other major Republican contenders in the game to stake an alternate or nuanced approach to crime. Louisiana, the on-again-off-again capitol of incarceration, has thrown away a whole generation of keys, and yet crime still remains. Maybe, just maybe, the criminals aren’t getting the message. Or they aren’t responding to it in the way the Lock’em ups would like.

Cue in the definition of insanity. Maybe, just maybe, the approach shouldn’t be to keep doing the same thing over and over again. The last time Lock’em up we saw the state realize that it couldn’t afford to house an endless amount of people in jail. Any candidate vowing to go forth as governor with the same failed approach should be appropriately judged as archaic, or uumm insane?

Some would say that the candidates are just echoing public sentiment. And that’s probably true. But how did that sentiment come about? Is that how we naturally respond to people who commit crimes or is that the way politicians have conditioned us to feel? Does it matter, though, if either way that approach, lock’em up and throw away the key, has turned out to be completely ineffective?

Governor’s Race Is Off to A Stereotypical Start

Ironically, this race would be better for citizens if current Governor, John Bel Edwards, was doing a terrible job. Then the candidates could focus on budgets, coastal erosion, insurance, and diversifying our economy. But besides the Ronald Greene calamity, Edwards has been pretty hum-drum throughout his term. That has caused this race to initially devolve into which Republicans love to spout – tough on crime.

Expect that to continue. Expect candidates to go hard on drag queens and transgenders. Also expect vows to wage a war on woke, CRT, and all other types of pandering. Just don’t expect them to show a shred of originality. And by all means don’t expect them to veer from the crowd and do something courageous like lead.