The Pardon

TOPSHOT - US President Joe Biden hugs his son Hunter Biden upon arrival at Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Delaware, on June 11, 2024, as he travels to Wilmington, Delaware. A jury found Hunter Biden ... TOPSHOT - US President Joe Biden hugs his son Hunter Biden upon arrival at Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Delaware, on June 11, 2024, as he travels to Wilmington, Delaware. A jury found Hunter Biden guilty on June 11 on federal gun charges in a historic first criminal prosecution of the child of a sitting US president. The 54-year-old son of President Joe Biden was convicted on all three of the federal charges facing him, CNN and other US media reported. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP) (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images) MORE LESS
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Over the past couple weeks the thought of President Biden pardoning his son entered my head a few times. I tossed it around: good or bad idea? I could see it both ways. I still can. But I am fine with his decision. I’m glad he did it. Biden learned the right lesson: no one gives a fuck about norms. It’s unquestionably true that Hunter Biden wouldn’t be in this position if not for his dad. That’s basically the justification Biden gave. And he’s right. It may sound angry or cynical to say ‘no one gives a fuck’. But I mean it both in a general way and in this particular way: the reason for Biden not to do this was to allow his son to remain collateral damage of the GOP war against his presidency and to leave him in the hands of the Trump DOJ for at least the next four years all to make a point of principle about being better, different, more righteous, more norm-honoring than Donald Trump.

Truly. No one gives a fuck. If anything, that logic I just laid out sounds like one of those fastidious, hyper-process-oriented and baroque bits of reasoning that have of late left Democrats mesmerized while the real world is passing them by.

Either you know the difference or you don’t. This doesn’t shift the balance in anyone’s head.

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