The bigger problem of big damn pardons such as Hunter Biden being given an 11 year blanket pardon by Joe Biden this week is political rather than legal.
It's like the George W. Bush era where a lot of stuff he did was legal, but had a huge political price that wrecked the Republican Party for several election cycles. Most people forget the Democrats had a supermajority in the senate for a short time. The overwhelming failure of the Republicans resulted in a lot of Republicans losing their power, and the eventual rise of the populist MAGA movement as a response to the question of "how the hell do we win elections with all the damage we've done?" And the answer turns out to be "dramatic ideologic changes in a core of the party".
Ford pardoning Nixon had a similar political price, helping Tom get Jimmy Carter elected. Reagan changed the story the Republicans were telling that time to win 2 huge terms in office.
Problem is people think digitally today and don't consider things that exist on a continuum between no and yes and things can move a needle without crossing the boundary from one to the other, so politically suicidal actions aren't considered bad since such actions may have worked once or twice proving always yes or always no.
The fact that the sky didn't fall today now that Biden did in fact do that is making digital thinkers think blanket pardons are acceptable now, leading for great calls for blanket immunity for entire lists of people who aligned with the outgoing administration. People are saying Fauci, Liz Cheney, and others should be given similar blanket pardons en masse immediately, before Trump enters office.
The Hunter Biden pardon might be able to be swept under the rug, but blanket immunity for many party loyalists will not. There's only two paths though at that point, ironically: either it turns out to be political suicide to do so for the entire party and nobody does it again, or it doesn't and it'll become routine practice for both parties.
It's like the George W. Bush era where a lot of stuff he did was legal, but had a huge political price that wrecked the Republican Party for several election cycles. Most people forget the Democrats had a supermajority in the senate for a short time. The overwhelming failure of the Republicans resulted in a lot of Republicans losing their power, and the eventual rise of the populist MAGA movement as a response to the question of "how the hell do we win elections with all the damage we've done?" And the answer turns out to be "dramatic ideologic changes in a core of the party".
Ford pardoning Nixon had a similar political price, helping Tom get Jimmy Carter elected. Reagan changed the story the Republicans were telling that time to win 2 huge terms in office.
Problem is people think digitally today and don't consider things that exist on a continuum between no and yes and things can move a needle without crossing the boundary from one to the other, so politically suicidal actions aren't considered bad since such actions may have worked once or twice proving always yes or always no.
The fact that the sky didn't fall today now that Biden did in fact do that is making digital thinkers think blanket pardons are acceptable now, leading for great calls for blanket immunity for entire lists of people who aligned with the outgoing administration. People are saying Fauci, Liz Cheney, and others should be given similar blanket pardons en masse immediately, before Trump enters office.
The Hunter Biden pardon might be able to be swept under the rug, but blanket immunity for many party loyalists will not. There's only two paths though at that point, ironically: either it turns out to be political suicide to do so for the entire party and nobody does it again, or it doesn't and it'll become routine practice for both parties.
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