Prof's standard was that a government uses coercion to stay in power against the will of the population.
That is obviously not the case in the US. We vote. We have transfers of power. We have a deeply flawed political system, but it is representative and we have a say.
Dharma is incapable of tying the incarceration rate to any such coercion as described by Prof, thus dharma is punting and dodging to avoid the reality that his argument is illogical and ungrounded in reality.