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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   31657 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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There's been a fair amount of discussion about Biden's pardoning of Hunter. There are people here willing to argue that it's a good thing, that it shows humanity on Biden's part to be willing to act as a father rather than as a politician. Others disagree, of course, but while the conversation about the current state has certainly been productive, it seems to me that rationalization on either side is always a failure mode, and the cure is predictions:

Suppose he pardons his brother Jim next? Is that also a good thing? Do you think it will happen, and if it does happen, what does it mean?

If I had the time, I think it would be pretty interesting to write an effort-post detailing how the conversation over the Biden family's alleged corruption has evolved over time, here and in the broader public, and the specific events and disclosures that have shaped that conversation. My perception is that many of the arguments made to defend Biden, his family, and the conduct of the investigations into their activities have aged exceedingly poorly. In particular, it seems to me that this saga has been an excellent example of a common pattern of group behavior wherein the facts, as they emerge, consistently break against the tribal narrative. This pattern seems to me to be a good indicator of entrenched tribalism attempting to deny reality, and likewise a good demonstration of the limits and shortcomings of that tribalism, which should guide us to a better understanding of how the Culture War is likely to play out.

Zooming out a bit, another interesting pattern is, for lack of a better term, "reasoning break points". There's a lot of evidence that Biden's family is corrupt and that Biden himself is involved, but evidently not quite enough evidence for anyone on his own side to do anything about it. Likewise, there's quite a lot of evidence that Biden is meaningfully senile, to the point that his own side forcibly un-nominated him for the presidential race. And yet, somehow, he's not quite senile enough to actually remove from office. One might expect these two issues to compound each other sufficiently to tip the scales on either, but somehow they aren't quite enough even in combination.

It seems to me that the Blue Tribe consensus is that these problems can be managed sufficiently to minimize harm to the cause, separately or even in combination. I perceive this to be a serious error. It seems to me that Blue risk assessments are based on the current state of conversation, and are largely based on the implicit assumption that their tribe has something approximating a veto on what what topics and perspectives that conversation will include. This is a mistake for two reasons: first, because the conversational veto has pretty clearly gone away, and second, because there is no reason to presume that the present set of facts will endure into the future. For the tribe staking their claim to "norms", there seems to be little awareness that the actions they take now are shaping those norms in the future.

Here's a short excerpt of what this looks like in practice:

REPORTER: "He's saying his own Justice Department is broken."

KJP: "He believes in the Justice Department."

REPORTER: "He just said it's infected with politics!"

KJP: [repeats talking points, quotes Biden] ""...even as I've watched my son be selectively and unfairly prosecuted...""

REPORTER: "How many selective prosecutions are there at the DOJ?"

KJP: I can't speak to that.

here are people here willing to argue that it's a good thing, that it shows humanity on Biden's part to be willing to act as a father rather than as a politician.

I dunno man, are there people here willing to argue that? Maybe a couple.

I like the idea some have proposed that Biden could have executed a master stroke by pardoning his son and the Jan. 6 protesters. Heads exploding on either side of the aisle.

But more seriously, I wonder if the GOP will make noises about amending the Constitution to abolish the presidential pardon now. Probably not (since they will want Trump to use it), but Biden has done grave damage to the concept of a presidential pardon. I have always thought it was a good thing - even when presidents have used it to pardon friends and cronies, I still like the idea that for grave injustices, there is a last resort if you can just appeal to one man. But like so many "to be used in case of emergency" tools, we risk losing them when they are abused.

I dunno man, are there people here willing to argue that? Maybe a couple.

I've not been able to post much here the last month or so, but I've made the argument as a steelman in other venues, and while I'd prefer some more enlightened form of deescalation on these matters combined with a moderately-embarrassing airing-of-deeds, there's reason that many of those options are either not available (eg, commuting sentences not finalized gets complicated) or not trusted to be available (eg, Biden absolutely wouldn't and probably shouldn't trust Trump to do a pardon exchange).

EDIT : hopefully fixed link.

Is that supposed to go straight to Cooke's Twitter profile? Not logged in ATM, so can't see if his most recent post is an exchange with you or something.

Nope. Sorry, correct link should be this. In case it's not visible for those not logged in:

I think there's a steelman that there's a bunch of widely distributed risks when prosecution of close family of presidents starts being a common thing, in the same way that prosecutions of Presidents would. If we broke down the fence over malum in se conduct, it'd be one thing. But as illegal as many of Hunter and Trump's behaviors may have been, afaict we're looking at malum prohibitum.

When you start opening up potential where the laws and moral get unclear, or enforcement hard, you don't just (or primarily) Get The Bad People. The alternative isn't just these two going to jail; it's opening up a repeat of Ted Stevens every four years, for the highest office in the land.((And, as Trump has demonstrated, sometimes with the opposite effect.))

I think there's some weaknesses even to this steelman: the obvious 'is no one above the law' question, differing feels on inherently immoral, why some offices fall under it and others don't, whether it delays or even discourages the reform that still hasn't happened post-Stevens. But from a 'maybe we don't want to break all these really important institutions' position (albeit as someone who maybe does), there's a not-crazy arg that this cordons off a really bad path.

Of course, even if that covers the breadth, it leaves the 'why pardon instead of commute' problem, especially since Hunter specifically would likely benefit from some time in a halfway house or mandatory detox.

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