Did Van Jones and Donald Trump Leave a Blueprint for Bipartisanship?

Gilsinan: There have been a lot of think pieces around the idea of: “Everybody knows the country is divided. How do I persuade another person to see the world the way I see it?” Which is a much higher bar than, “How do I just not see this person as not a person?” The persuasion question is almost the wrong question.

Brandon Kramer: Obviously the film has a point of view — we’re following Van and his team. But when we set out to make this film, we were like, “If we’re going to make a film about bridge building, we need to create an experience for viewers across a very diverse political background to be able to trust and engage with the film.”

Patrisse [Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter] is not one of the main characters in the film, but we spent time with her as [a person who was] really opposed to the First Step Act. We really wanted to create an empathetic experience into [that] point of view and why [people] oppose the bill, why they want a more comprehensive criminal-justice reform, and what an abolitionist framework is. We screened the film to audiences that do not agree with what Van is doing, but they trust the film because they see protagonists represented that have their point of view. Similarly, there are conservatives in the film. Jared Kushner is in the film, [Republican] Senator Mike Lee from Utah, [Republican Senator] Rand Paul’s in the film, and we screened the film in many conservative communities where, even though they might not agree with Van, they might not agree with [Democratic Senator] Cory Booker, they’re seeing people that they do trust on the screen represented in a fair and honest way.

Audiences are used to seeing things that just embolden their point of view and minimize other people’s point of view. This film invites them in because they see perspectives that represent how they feel, but it also gives them an empathetic viewing to other people’s perspectives. And what I’ve seen is that it doesn’t change people’s minds about how they feel. But I’ve seen people who don’t like Van, who come up to me after the film, they’re like, “I still don’t like Van Jones, but now I understand where he’s coming from”. Or I’ve seen conservatives who are like, “I didn’t know anything about criminal justice reform, and I don’t love Van Jones, but I actually appreciate the fact he was willing to work with some of these people.”

Gilsinan: It sounds like the effect is not changing an individual’s mind about their own political beliefs, but it might be changing their mind about other people’s political beliefs, and making their political opponents seem less insane or extreme.

Brandon Kramer: There are people who are extreme in this. [Republican] Senator Tom Cotton, [then-Attorney General] Jeff Sessions, who believe there is an under-incarceration problem in America — there’s no real point of empathy into their perspective in this film because their views are so out there that there’s nothing to connect with. But to your question, the reason to do that is not just, let’s hold hands and be happy-go-lucky. When you have a greater understanding of somebody that feels different — when Van Jones can understand Patrisse Cullors a little better, when Tylo can understand the sheriff from West Virginia a little better, when Jared Kushner can understand [Democratic Rep.] Hakeem Jeffries a little better — what starts to happen is there’s actually like, “Okay, let’s drill into the details of where we can find some common ground in a piece of legislation that is going to impact tens of thousands of people’s lives.” The bill doesn’t have sentencing reform. That’s a real problem for a lot of people in the progressive movement. Well, there’s some sentencing provisions that seem to resonate with people on the right as well as the left. Let’s drill into the details. When you vilify people, you don’t allow the space to actually dialogue and get into, “Is there some sort of overlap in these circles?” Nine times out of ten there actually is.

And we saw one of the few examples of that conversation actually playing out, resulting in a fierce debate that was sometimes really painful. But it resulted in a bill that was passed by a bipartisan Senate, passed by a bipartisan vote in the House, and it’s signed by none other than the “law and order” President Donald Trump. And then you see the tens of thousands of people come out of prison and rejoin their families. When you see that relationship-building lead to people walk out of a prison and come home to their family, it means a lot more than just helping them be friends.

Lance Kramer: Pain can also be a binding agent across these divides. When we were beginning work on the film, [Van] was talking a lot about this idea that common pain could lead to common purpose, [and] common purpose could lead to some sort of common project. It brings people to the table to fight for things that they believe in and things that are affecting their communities. But you also have to treat that with a lot of care and concern because when people are opened up that way, it’s such a fragile place to be in. So it’s understandable why, also, it doesn’t happen.

Gilsinan: Are there any emblematic stories that you have from the families that you’ve spoken to whose members have gotten out of prison under the under the First Step Act?

Lance Kramer: A man named Maurice Clifton had been serving a multi-decade prison sentence in federal prison for a very small amount — first-time, nonviolent — possession of crack cocaine. He came home early under the First Step Act in 2020, like two months before the pandemic, and then got ordained, went back into prison as a chaplain, and is also working on bipartisan reform in Mississippi. He took us into the prison in Parchman, Mississippi, which is a state prison built on a former slave plantation in the Mississippi Delta, [and] screened the film for the men that he works with in the prison last spring. And then in a couple of weeks, he’s screening the film as part of its theatrical release. He is presenting the film in Jackson, Mississippi, and inviting Republicans, Democrats — he’s put a panel together.

We’ve been going around the country, I think now we’ve been to over 30 states. Basically, in every place, there have been people who have either come home from the First Step Act or people who have been directly impacted by the criminal justice system who are using the film to help other people understand what they’ve been through and also what they’re fighting for. Especially in red states and the divided states, I think that’s where it’s been particularly profound.

Brandon Kramer: Most of the prison population in the United States is in state prisons, not federal. So the urgency around reform is really at the state [level]. The federal level is important, because there’s a lot of people in federal prisons, and also it sets a narrative that is replicable. And when the First Step Act passed, it didn’t just free people from federal prisons. Once Trump signed that bill, it was a message to a lot of Republican governors and legislatures that criminal justice reform is a safe issue to work on on the right, and it resulted in many statewide bills that were passed.

Gilsinan: What are the examples of state-level reforms that the federal reform created space for?