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Notes -
A tweet from June 6th:
A reply to this tweet, today:
Sure enough, in his final month in office, Joe has pardoned Hunter, after repeatedly promising not to do exactly that. No less than the Guardian and the BBC are calling Joe Biden a hypocrite and saying that this latest action legitimises some of the criticisms Trump has lobbed at Biden.
A few weeks ago there was a discussion here on what Biden might do with his final few weeks in office to ensure his legacy, knowing that he'll never hold public office again. Negotiate a last-minute but inevitable peace deal in Ukraine, to snatch that opportunity from Trump's grubby claws? Recognise the Armenian genocide at last? Pass a bill mandating the creation of a new national park? Step down so that Kamala can legitimately claim to be the first female POTUS, if only for ten minutes?
I guess we have our answer as to what he'll do with his legacy: piss all over it, exposing himself as no less of a corrupt nepotist than Erdoğan.
As The Motte's most rabid Trump partisan: I really don't care. I'm not sure what people expected.
Maybe this will finally end years of gaslighting about Hunter and Joe. The idea has always been that Hunter traded money for connection to Joe, and Joe was in on it, and took a cut. The rest of Hunter's crimes were just personal antics, of a kind any normal person would have received worse punishment for. But it wasn't really "political" except from bungling Republicans who couldn't sell the connection from Hunter to Joe, so made it look like all this uproar was over dick pics et al.
Personally I like the pardon power and am glad it exists. This is probably a much better outcome than the alternative. The example of other nations shows thay prosecuting presidents and their families is much likelier to lead to coups and crises than genuine justice and law.
The uproar about Hunter Biden always felt farcical. From Clinton's emails to Mar a lago documents.
Temporary talking points and weapons that you're supposed to look down on for the enemy but the other way when it's your team.
Typical political shitflinging. It means nothing, was noise, is noise, and will continue to be noise. Useful for filling the air and giving the playmakers background latitude, however.
There is considerable evidence that Hunter was selling access to Joe. That is, by itself, quite illegal and highly objectionable.
It gets worse when "illegitimate foreign influence" has been a consistent talking point against Trump and anyone else who went against the Blue Tribe policy consensus.
It gets worse when Trump was impeached for attempting to direct the justice department to investigate the evident corruption.
It gets worse when the Justice Department evidently slow-walked investigations and attempted to cut sweetheart deals to provide political advantage to Biden.
It gets worse when The federal government and state governments have been bending and outright breaking laws in an attempt to destroy Trump legally and politically.
It gets worse when this is not a recent problem, and in fact Trump made opposition to it central to his campaign in 2016.
The media is, of course, in no hurry to assemble the facts into a coherent, easily-digestable normiefeed narrative. That doesn't change the weight of the actual facts. There is path dependence here, and the result is that you will never, ever get trust and cooperation across the aisle in this area ever again.
As i said, mostly noise.
If you think broad-based consensus on the legitimacy of the justice system's interactions with politicians isn't something that we should consider terribly important, then sure. It's not as though such questions have been a chronic flashpoint for the Culture War over the last decade. I'm sure it'll be fine.
If your reality predicts collapsism stemming from the Hunter Biden Pardon, go for it, it is your reality, and a useful rhetorical weapon.
So look, you can take the position you do, but engage in good faith, don't snarkily dismiss people as "living in their own reality." I am annoyed by this comment not because you're being rude to @FCfromSSC (he can take it, and he and I don't agree on much politically) but because it is the sort of comment that's been flying a lot lately, the Twitter-dunk, the dismissive "Wow," the failure to engage except to the minimum degree necessary to snidely express your contempt.
Don't do this.
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