Another day, another reminder of why Trump gets no honeymoon from me. Noah Rothman describes how Trump’s J6 Pardons Are a Prelude to More Political Violence.
Shortly after his election, Trump sought to reassure the public that he would be more discreet with his pardon pen. “I’m going to do case-by-case, and if they were non-violent, I think they’ve been greatly punished,” he insisted. His incoming White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, concurred. Only those “who were denied due process and unfairly persecuted by the weaponized Department of Justice” would receive clemency, she maintained. “If you beat up a cop, of course you deserve to go to prison,” JD Vance assured Americans with the utmost self-confidence. “If you violated the law, you should suffer the consequences.” House Speaker Mike Johnson seconded the notion. “I think what the president said, and vice-president-elect JD Vance has said, is that peaceful protesters should be pardoned, but violent criminals should not,” he observed. “That’s a simple determination.”
It sure is. But these assurances were part of a campaign of misdirection. Trump and company asked us to scrupulously observe an elementary distinction between violent and non-violent offenses – a categorical differentiation anyone with a lick of sense would also make — when they had no intention of respecting it themselves. This line was little more than the nearest rhetorical weapon at hand; a tribute vice pays to virtue, the virtue being the naïve belief that political violence is wrong per se and must be stridently opposed by every upstanding steward of the American civic compact. The vice is — or, rather, should be — self-explanatory.
Noah's bottom line:
Apparently, a consistent revulsion toward political violence in whatever form it takes is a quaint and, indeed, controversial notion. Both edges of the American political spectrum appear to have convinced themselves that the remedy to the problem of lax penalties for the other side’s violent rioters is lax penalties for their side’s violent rioters. This is a recipe for more political violence, not less. We should expect it.
You might want to invest in our Amazon Product du Jour! It's OSHA approved!
Also disgusted by Trump II, Day I, is Jacob Sullum: Trump's blanket clemency for Capitol rioters excuses political violence. Repeating the broken promises and empty rhetoric:
President Donald Trump has called the riot that interrupted congressional ratification of Joe Biden's election four years ago "a heinous attack on the United States Capitol." And even when he began talking about pardoning some of the people who invaded the Capitol that day, he signaled that he would use his clemency power with care. "I am inclined to pardon many of them," he told CNN in 2023. "I can't say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control." Just last week, J.D. Vance, now the vice president, elaborated on that point. "If you committed violence on that day," Vance said on Fox News, "obviously you shouldn't be pardoned."
Trump drew no such distinction on Monday, when he granted "a full, complete and unconditional pardon" to nearly 1,600 people who had been charged in connection with the Capitol riot. Trump also commuted the sentences of 14 people who were still serving time for riot-related crimes and instructed the Justice Department to drop pending cases. Those decisions, he claimed, were necessary to correct "a grave national injustice" and begin "a process of national reconciliation."
Maybe Trump should simply modify that thing he used to say: "We'll reconcile so much, you'll get bored with all the reconciliation."
Also of note:
-
But when he's right… Jacob Sullum also describes Why Trump Should Keep His Promise To Free Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht. (Obviously written before Trump pardoned Ulbricht.)
In addition to many other things he has promised to do on his first day in office, Donald Trump has said he will free Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who is serving a life sentence in federal prison for connecting drug consumers with drug sellers. From a libertarian perspective, it is obvious that no one should go to prison for facilitating peaceful transactions among consenting adults. But Ulbricht's grossly disproportionate punishment should give pause even to supporters of the war on drugs.
Jacob goes into great detail about Ulbricht's prosecution/persecution.
-
Jeff Maurer and I have different beliefs. He writes: I Can’t Believe That Free Speech, Color Blindness, and Meritocracy Became Right-Wing Issues. Reserving some quibbles about "right-wing", I actually do believe that. But here's Jeff, who is looking at Trump's Inauguration address:
In between rhetorical touchdown dances, a few sentences shivved me right in my liberal ribs. It was these sentences:
“After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I will also sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.”
…
“This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will force a society that is colorblind and merit-based.”
Those sentences hurt not because I disagree, but because I can’t believe that the left has fucked things up so badly that free speech, color blindness, and meritocracy are now issues that the right feels they own. In fact, those issues are so right-coded that they made the list of Things To Throw In Democrats’ Faces At The Inauguration Speech. A little more than a decade ago, those were bedrock liberal ideals. How did we screw this up?
The answer, of course, is that radical leftists pushed a bunch of shit-for-brains ideas, and liberals were too dickless to say “what you’re saying is dumb and wrong”.
Jeff doesn't use the word "progressive" in his essay, which is a shame. Progressives haven't been for free speech since Woodrow Wilson threw Eugene Debs in jail.
-
Speaking of believing stuff, though, I have a hard time believing that Democrats actually believe this. Jerry Coyne calls on his fellow Democrats to return to sanity: Elon Musk did NOT give a Hitler salute.
It’s stuff like this that makes me worry that the Democrats, instead of taking stock of where we went wrong to lose the Presidential election, are simply doubling down on what made us lose. That involved, in part, excessive demonizing of Republicans, including calling them Nazis. The public (save for blockheads and “progressive” Democrats) is not stupid enough, for example, to really think that Elon Musk was making a Hitler salute when he made a gesture from his heart to the world at Trump’s post-inauguration celebration at the Capital One arena. Here it is. It may be awkward, but even I’m not crazy enough to think he’s paying homage to Hitler or Mussolini.
[…]
Jerry quotes a lot of people who are apparently crazy enough to think that. Including (you might notice) the Public Broadcasting System, whose description of this 39-second video is "Elon Musk appears to give fascist salute during Trump inauguration celebration".
Trump can't defund PBS fast enough.
Jerry also (amusingly) compiles a number of pictures of prominent Democrats giving the same gesture.
Also commenting Is Megan McArdle who supplies The missing context from the Elon Musk salute. RTWT, but here's her wise bottom line:
It is very satisfying to believe that you are fighting pure evil. Most of the work of politics is somewhat dispiriting: inadequate half-measures, frustrating compromise and incremental change. Pretty boring stuff compared with the exciting work of exorcising the demons in our midst. That’s why Donald Trump campaigned on the promise that America could be fixed by stomping out the treacherous liberal elite and why the #Resistance generated so much energy from the promise to stomp back harder.
Ten years on, what has any of it gotten us, except more and purer poison? You can’t exorcise your way to a functioning democracy. Because if we insist on believing that our opponents are evil personified, then the necessary work of democratic compromise becomes an unthinkable deal with the devil.
So: mixed bag today. And probably tomorrow too. And…