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PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Civil rights attorney Larry Krasner won the race for district attorney in Philadelphia on Tuesday in a blowout, taking 75% of the vote and seeing a turnout increase of nearly 75,000 votes compared to the last competitive DA race in 2009.
Krasner generated a fervent following among progressives, criminal justice reform advocates, millennials, and communities of color during the campaign, due to a platform calling for an end to "mass incarceration," the constellation of state and federal policies that have put more than 2 million Americans behind bars, and his long-established reputation as an advocate for civil rights, activists, and protesters.
Business Insider traveled to Philadelphia in October to follow Krasner and his campaign. Over the course of a weekend, Business Insider spoke with Krasner for more than two hours on everything from his campaign to the 2016 election and President Donald Trump.
The transcript below is edited for length and clarity.
Harrison Jacobs: The top line headline about you, in the New York Times and other outlets is that you've sued the police 75 times, you are the lawyer for Black Lives Matter, Occupy, and every other major activist group. Do you consider yourself an activist?
Larry Krasner: I don't think I should get that much credit. I consider myself an activist's lawyer. I consider myself to be a movement lawyer. But calling myself an activist maybe gives me too much credit.
Jacobs: Why did you get into defending those causes? A sense of principle? Something else?
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Krasner: If you talk to activists, which I've been doing for a very long time, I think if you look at the Civil Rights Movement, if you look at the relationship, for example, between [Martin Luther] King and William Kunstler, who was one of the lawyers for King, but I think [Kunstler] used to refer to the lawyers as "technicians" for the movement.
Historically, there's always been a problem of lawyers thinking they know everything, which is in fact a problem in life with lawyers ... There's been a culture of activism of making it clear to lawyers that the support is necessary and appreciated, but they weren't necessarily the leaders of the movement. Yeah they were the technicians for it. That's part of the reason why when you ask me if I am an activist that I respond that way.
In reference to your next question, I don't necessarily agree with every single thing that the group's I've represented stand for. I often do.
But part of my fascination with representing activists and organizers is really about free speech. That goes way back.
Krasner says he may have spent his career defending protesters, but he won't be defending Nazis.
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Jacobs: You've talked a lot about free speech, civil rights, the principles of that. I'm wondering ... the ACLU is very fundamentalist when it comes to that type of thing, where they were defending Nazis in Charlottesville in court so that they could protest.
Krasner: I don't defend Nazis … First of all, I have huge respect for the ACLU and was foolish enough as a young lawyer when I was interviewing for jobs in district attorney's offices and public defenders' offices coming out law school to put on my resume that I hoped to someday work with the ACLU. Which turned out to be a pretty good way not to be hired by district attorneys.
I have mad love for the ACLU, but I also know that the powerless and people without money have plenty of work for lawyers to do. I ain't doing it for Nazis. There are too many missing branches on my family tree for me to spend my time working for free for Nazis.
I'm going to work for people who are at least in the ballpark of going against hate rather than in favor of it. And at least in the ballpark of trying to advocate for decent policies. I'm also not working for the NRA and there's probably a list that could go on for a while. But no, I think that hateful people have plenty of supporters and I would rather work for people who aren't hateful.
Jacobs: Do you think that as a national organization the ACLU is making a mistake?
Krasner: I think they have to remain true to their own mission. It’s different when you are out here in the working world trying to run your own law practice and pay frankly exorbitant taxes and deciding what you are going to do with your extra free work. I ain't doing my extra free work for a bunch of Nazis.
I ain't doing my extra free work for a bunch of Nazis.
Jacobs: You've described yourself as a "technician" for the movement. I imagine that, with your interest in those things, you saw that as the best way for you to use your talents to help any cause, whether you agreed with it or not. Is your decision to go after DA now an acknowledgement that maybe your talents are better served in another role. Is that the way you are seeing it?
Krasner: I have — like a lot of civil rights lawyers, like a lot of activists — been beating my head against the wall of the DA's office and the [Philadelphia] police department for a long time because the DA's office in Philly was not enforcing the law against police. Somebody had to do it.
I'm not a fan of bullies, and a small portion of the police department were behaving like bullies. So I felt that somebody had to prosecute them, which is essentially what I did by filing civil rights lawsuits against them. I used the only tools in the toolbox to essentially be a private prosecutor against civil rights violations and corruption and brutality on the part of police. I've been doing that for a long time. And activists have been doing that for a long time and we've done some good.
But ultimately if you never break down the wall, you may have to go through the door, because there's stuff going on on the inside that is hard to fix from the outside.
So having been a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer for 30 years, I watched this election with my usual level of dismay because I didn't see any great candidates popping up … And the rest of [the candidates during the primary] frankly were, at best, progressive-lite, more like faux-progressives who had not shown in their careers or in their dealings with me — and I dealt with a lot of them personally — who had not shown attention for reform … I just figured this is ridiculous. Somebody real has got to get into this because these people aren't going to change anything.
The 'Soros money' took the race from a close win to a blowout.
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Jacobs: Was it the support of activists — knowing that they would have your back — that convinced you that you could win?
Krasner: That was a lot of it … I also was vetted by people, who were frankly a bit of a mystery to me. But we later concluded that they were vetting to determine what candidate they liked to be supported by George Soros's PAC. The name George Soros and the word PAC was never mentioned. But there was a request for me to meet with them to discuss my positions on someone representing political funders. That's all I knew.
Jacobs: What effect do you think the “Soros money” had on the campaign?
Krasner: I think it I think it had an effect ... If you look at the internal campaign, [we campaigned] half as long or less than half as long as the other people who came close. If you look at the actual money raised, less money by far than Joe Kahn [who placed second and was the frontrunner at the beginning of the race], less institutional support than Joe Kahn, who in many ways was the mainstream liberal candidate.
From an anecdotal perspective ... I went to all these ward meetings. I had tremendous benefit from the endorsement of Michael Coard [a well-known African-American lawyer in Philadelphia]. When I would go into predominantly black neighborhoods, generally they weren't familiar with us. I was an unknown person. I had a name that started with a K. Joe Kahn had a name that started with a K.
I would talk to these older African-American women who were committee people, and they would say, "Are you the one Michael Coard endorsed?" If I said yes, I was good. Or "are you the civil rights guy?" And if I said yes, then I was good.
The difference was once the television, the radio, and the mailings started, I would now go into essentially the same type of an area and people would come up to me and say, "You're Larry Krasner, and I'm voting for you."
I have to tell you I was a little disturbed by some of the advertising, because I thought that putting out a mailing in which you really emphasized “defended Black Lives Matter,” “defended Occupy” — that looked to me to be a risky strategy. What I did not understand is that it wasn't.
It's that millennials and African-Americans and a lot of social justice-oriented white people and a lot of white people who are working class really were progressive and they really were open to a message that was things like “no death penalty,” “put the money back in schools,” “mass incarceration,” and “stop taking people's property unjustifiably.”
I think [the Soros money] increased the margin. I think that's fair. But I also think that we were not only neck and neck, but that we had been steadily increasing our vote share. We had done very well in the early polls. And I think that we would have narrowly won or very narrowly lost without the outside support.
The two candidates who were more institutional, better funded, and ran much longer campaigns ... I truly believe that the strength of this was that it was a movement and it was a message that resonated. When I put that message out there, these other candidates had either no platform or they had two planks in the platform.
There is 'absolutely' a lesson for Democrats in his big win.
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Jacobs: Would it be fair to say that [ took a bold message and then amplified it? Or made it bolder?
Krasner: I think it's fair to say that they amplified the platform. And they also taught me a lesson, which is that it's not 1987 anymore. People want their same sex marriage. They want their recreational marijuana. They want their economic equality. Especially millennials and older African-Americans, who've been through the civil rights movement and have seen it.
They know there is racism. They don't want racism, but they do want their public schools, which in many places don't exist anymore. It was a lesson to me that my views were being characterized as controversial. They're actually pretty mainstream with the average Democratic voter in Philadelphia County.
Jacobs: Do you think there's a lesson in that for the national Democratic Party?
Krasner: Absolutely. Absolutely. Let me just give you a little teeny tiny portion of it. I think if the Democrats nationally were to come out in favor of recreational marijuana, for many reasons, the first and best of them being it doesn't kill anybody. But alcohol does. And when I say alcohol does, I mean like 80,000 lives a year.
And marijuana kills nobody. It doesn't kill anybody but opiates and opioids do. And I mean like 60,000 lives every year. These are real numbers. As compared to zero.
I think that if Democrats would come out for that, then you would see a lot of rural areas that went for Trump where there's little pickup trucks going to the polls, with guys who have beards and they have ponytails and they have a gun rack in the back, and they would be voting for recreational marijuana because they know it makes sense too.
They know that the reality is where it's readily available you have a 25 percent reduction in opioid/opiate fatalities. That is a national catastrophe. They know that at least the states that get in early are going to have tremendous tax funds that they can use to bolster education.
The Democratic Party has got to stop running around trying to be close to the Republican Party. Bernie made that clear. And for those who didn't pay attention, he did actually win the youth vote in, I think, every single state among Democrats and he took 46 percent of the vote nationally. So wake up.
Jacobs: Were you surprised by the activist energy around your campaign? Do you think that was a big source of why you were doing so well?
Krasner: I was not surprised. I was very encouraged. I was actually kind of amazed because I knew how capable they were. But I didn't expect that explosive level of volunteer support. Their explosive capacity in social media … That to me was a real lesson in how all these leaders, which is what [these activists] are, all these scrappy little leaders who have been you know fighting wars with their fingernails and winning could do politics.
And the reality is they are way better than the vast majority of political operatives. They just are. They just haven't been engaged in conventional politics.
Jacobs: Do you think we're seeing an awakening towards that? If you look at the recent history of activism, it is generally around single issues ... marching and demonstrations and things like that. Do you think we're seeing a switch towards more electoral politics?
Krasner: Bernie [Sanders] was very encouraging to a lot of people. I think Trump was very frightening to people. And the reality is that there's a big generational shift going on right now. The values of millennials are significantly different than the values of the old Reagan Democrats.
Maybe I'm wrong but I have this sense that millennials, for whatever reason, feel like it's OK to be young and try to do something. They don't feel like they have to wait until they're 56. Like I did. I do think there's a shift.
Yeah I think that there's something going on. I think it's real. I think the Democratic Party should be madly wrapping its loving arms around progressives.
I think the Democratic Party should be madly wrapping its loving arms around progressives.
I hope they will. Especially progressives like me who voted Democrat our whole lives and went to the polls every time.
Jacobs: Do you think that's why this race in particular went so far left? Like you said, almost every Democratic DA candidate was falling over themselves to be progressive.
Krasner: Here's a couple of points on the graph. Barack Obama was a community organizer. Republicans thought that was their home-run shot. Ah! He's a community organizer. What a jackass. How funny! Not so funny. Elected twice.
Here comes Bernie, self-proclaimed socialist. Ah, a socialist! It's so funny! Not so funny. 46%. Obviously, Bernie's obstacle which he was unable to overcome, was uniting millennials with African-American votes. Hillary hung onto the African-American vote.
So then this election happens. Novice politician, doesn't really know what he's doing. And in Philadelphia, the millennials held hands with the blacks.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Civil rights attorney Larry Krasner won the race for district attorney in Philadelphia on Tuesday in a blowout, taking 75% of the vote and seeing a turnout increase of nearly 75,000 votes compared to the last competitive DA race in 2009. 
Krasner:
