He wants to be a dictator, he wants people to suffer, he is brain damaged........

A trip to Alcatraz made it clear why Trump wants a prison here again

SFGATE columnist Drew Magary made the trip to Alcatraz for a look at the past — and the future

By Drew Magary

I remember this green, and I hate it. I’m standing in a preserved cell on Alcatraz Island, staring at the green paint lining the cell’s lower walls. I’ve been on this tour twice before, once as a child and once as a new parent. On both visits, I remembered the green paint above all else. Calling it “green,” or even “sickly green,” doesn’t properly convey the hue. On the prison’s audio tour, a former inmate speaks into my ear that “I was a man who was dead inside” when he was on Alcatraz. This is what that green looks like: like spiritual death. You see this color, and you want to escape from it.

That instinct is even more acute on this day. This is my third time visiting Alcatraz as a tourist, but it’s my first time visiting it under the specter of its potential reopening as a detention facility. Perhaps you forgot that Donald Trump, with the explicit blessing of his Federal Bureau of Prisons, would like to make this a reality. The great SDTV inside of Trump’s skull sees visions of a newly reopened Rock, its cells populated with his favorite enemies and a standing $10 million cash prize to any who successfully escape. He sees a ratings winner. So today, I’m looking at these sickly walls and not seeing a grim reminder of this nation’s carceral past but of its potential carceral future.

Perhaps my future, as well. After all, I’m a journalist, and I think Trump sucks mondo ass. That makes me a prime target for the goon squad, so maybe a stint on Alcatraz awaits me. If so, I’d better familiarize myself with my new home and perhaps with its potential escape routes.

The ferry ride out to Alcatraz Island is, as ever, peak San Francisco cold. Even on this sunny June day, it’s cold. Even with bodies packed tight on the deck, it’s cold. If they had REALLY wanted to make Al Capone suffer, they would have just made him ride this ferry 24/7 until his dormant syphilis finally claimed him.

I reach the island, and I’m greeted by the deep red graffiti that Native Americans scrawled on the old prison barracks when they took over the island in 1969 to stage a mass protest of the U.S. government’s Indian Termination Policy. Six years before that occupation, Alcatraz had ceased operations as a detention facility because federal officials realized that keeping it open was an extravagant waste of money, with two senators famously claiming it would cost less to house all of the facility’s inmates at the Waldorf-Astoria. That occupation would last around another two years before the feds ended it by force, but officials in charge of the island preserved remnants of the uprising, even dedicating the island’s New Industries Building as a museum to it. I never paid much attention to that bit of history the last time I visited Alcatraz. The restored “INDIANS WELCOME” message I see upon disembarking compels me to, and I’m glad for it.

More signs of life abound. Along the walk up toward the main prison, nature has reclaimed a good portion of the island. Thick vines, a more welcome shade of green, grow over the outer walls. Chirping seagulls float overhead, waiting for tourists to drop their hot dogs. And just around the bend, I spot an endless flock of Brandt’s cormorants — their elongated necks bent into the shape of a question mark — nesting on the rocks. These birds are far more tolerant of the cold and wind than I am, which makes Alcatraz a rather ideal habitat for them.

I make my way to the cell house and here, too, see examples of life finding a way on this otherwise desolate outpost. Alcatraz began its career as a military outpost during the Gold Rush, only for the U.S. government to convert it into a prison back in the 1930s in response to — stop me if you heard this before — a nationwide panic over crime. Alcatraz wouldn’t be just a prison but THE prison: a maritime hellhole designed explicitly to house, and to torment, the country’s most nefarious criminals, Capone among them. From a PR standpoint, it was a success. The prison became, by far, the most famous prison in America, and the inmates inside of it spent their time on the island miserable beyond comprehension.

Evidence of that misery abounds. I can see it in the green paint. I can hear it in the audio tour. But I also see evidence of life and of survival. I see inmates’ possessions preserved in their cells: tooth powder, dented metal cups, accordions, old baseball mitts and cribbage boards. I see sunlight shining down on the cell block through the filthy skylights above. I walk out to the old rec yard, where prisoners were allowed recess time out in the fresh, if brisk, air as a reward for good behavior. And of course, I see the preserved evidence of the famed 1962 prison escape. I see these things, and I imagine the criminals once marooned here attempting, even in their spiritual death, to give their lives a trace amount of joy. Color. Given the offenses those prisoners committed, it’s easy to say they never deserved any of that joy. But when you stand here, on The Rock, you understand their primal need to do so. You understand that suffering is suffering, no matter who’s on the receiving end of it. 

Because, of course, circumstances on Alcatraz were dire. You’ll learn all about that on the audio tour if you come back to visit. More importantly, you’ll SEE it with your own eyes. You’ll glance at the cold iron floor of a solitary confinement unit in the D Block, and you’ll get a better understanding of the cruelties of prison than you ever could from a film or book. You’ll get an intimate understanding that the lives these prisoners cobbled out for themselves existed only in bursts, some not longer than a few minutes a day.

This is when the reminder hits me. I’m standing not just inside our most famous prison but also inside our most famous prison museum. Alcatraz, with all of its history still preserved, serves as a vital educational tool for Americans to learn both how their prisons work and how awful those prisons are. Nine years after it ceased to operate as a detention facility, Alcatraz became part of our national park system. It’s not as picturesque as the Grand Canyon, but it may be no less valuable. 

It’s also one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Bay Area, of course. America’s Tower of London. Converting it back into a prison, when we already have so many other abjectly cruel jails up and running nationwide, would not only prove to be an extravagant waste of money but would make all of us stupider in the process. This Alcatraz, as it stands now, is more than just an ideal place to sate your most intensely morbid fascinations. The Alcatraz of today is a monument: one that illuminates this nation’s past in ways that will surprise, educate and even outrage its present citizens. We need this Alcatraz, just as it is. No wonder Donald Trump wants to destroy it.