It could happen to anyone. You, me, that cafeteria lady who used to give you extra fries.  

Any one of us could wind up trapped in a Swedish jail. All you’d have to do is book an innocent flight to Sweden, then commit some kind of crime worthy of imprisonment, and the police will take care of the rest. Things in Sweden are really that bad.

Which is why I’m both grateful and confused that Donald Trump’s Twitter has come to the rescue of a fashion-savvy hip-hop star named A$AP Rocky, who is now behind bars in Sweden after his own Stockholm mishap.

Trump has promised to vouch for A$AP, and do what he can to get him home as $oon as possible. This is natural, of course. Trump has proved time and again that his views on race are totally accepted by the hip-hop community. 

Like the time he appeared in that Snoop Dogg video.

…or when Melania, his wife, was in that T.I. video.

…or at least when Kanye West visited him personally and word vomited in his office. That must have been the moment when they finally accepted him.

 

Now that they’re all well acquainted, Trump is ready to personally vouch for Mr. Rocky in order to get him out of that awful Swedish prison and back to America, where he won’t be fed a diet of Swedish meatballs, vegetables, and highly suspicious lingonberry. (Actually, though.)

Clearly this is just a ploy to keep A$AP Rocky there longer, so they can finally teach Swedish people how to rap.

Admittedly it’s been tough keeping track of who Trump wants in the country, and who he doesn’t. Clearly A$AP Rocky is on the ‘Yes, immediately’ list, despite getting in a fight in Sweden, even if he didn’t start it. Refugees from Guatemala seem to be somewhere on the ‘Maybe’ list, or the ‘Not right now’ list. And according to other recent tweets, congresswomen like Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar are clearly on a list called ‘No, never, please go away’. Perhaps Trump can arrange for some sort of trade? 

In any case, it’s comforting to see that everything is still right in the world — that a tweet from Trump still matters, definitely more than one little Scandinavian justice system. Because what’s the point in having presidents if they can’t call on their fellow leaders to release important figures after legal mix-ups?

 

Sadly though, Sweden’s prime minister doesn’t seem to understand this, and is claiming something fishy about not being allowed to interfere in the judicial system. Clearly this is just a ploy to keep A$AP Rocky there longer, so they can finally teach Swedish people how to rap. It’s just like the time China’s president, Xi Jinping, politely asked Canada to release the CFO of Huawei, and Justin Trudeau just threw his hands up like there was nothing he could do. The Swedes and Canadians have a lot to learn about presidential powers. And Twitter.

But just as I was getting upset about Sweden’s tale of fair trials, I realized what a golden opportunity this was for America. Finally we can deploy A$AP Rocky to collect valuable information on a key source of foreign mysticism: other countries’ prison systems. 

Sweden has one of the lowest reoffending rates in the world, meaning when people leave jail, they rarely come back — which doesn’t exactly sound like a glowing review.

There’s some really strange stuff going on in Swedish jails. The one where A$AP is staying doesn’t even have bunk beds, which sounds not only cruel but elitist. How else are you going to swap secrets at night with your criminal roommate, who might be in there for something even worse than you? How are criminals expected to improve themselves? Sounds like part of the punishment is boring people to death.

Instead they give you your own cozy space, with a window, and a wooden bed, with a soft mattress on it that looks eerily similar to a hostel I stayed at once in Belgium. I remember that hostel… they stopped serving breakfast at 9am. I mean, what kind of backpacker gets up before 10? In the mystifying pictures I saw, there was even a writing table where A$AP could potentially jot down a few rhymes — fuel for a new album, or at least a single when he gets released.

And now Sweden’s ploy becomes really obvious. What better way to get free PR than have a famous rapper stay in your facility and then make a highly anticipated song about it? Real mature, Sweden. We’re onto you.

It doesn’t end there, though. A recent article about the facility where they’ve heartlessly locked away our hip-hop hero says they’ve also got activity rooms, where inmates can watch movies or play boardgames.

What, and no video games? Nobody plays board games these days, so by the time A$AP comes home he’ll be a social outcast – yet another layer to Sweden’s cruel system of rehabilitation. 

Oh, wait… they’ve got video games, too. Those are terrible for your eyes.

Clearly Sweden’s prison system is a cautionary tale for what could happen in America if they’re not careful and suddenly start trying to rehabilitate people instead of just punish them and turn them into even worse criminals. Sweden has one of the lowest reoffending rates in the world, meaning when people leave jail, they rarely come back — which doesn’t exactly sound like a glowing review.

I just hope Sweden’s prime minister comes to his senses, and that Trump’s tweeting gets through to him before A$AP succumbs to all that Swedish furniture. Maybe we can use this time to figure out who we need to get in and out of America the quickest.

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