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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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If that would have been the only way to prevent his son from being locked up in federal prison due to malicious prosecution for as long as MAGA would hold power, I might agree with you.

But my general take on the finances of the Biden family is that they would probably have managed to buy a plane ticket to Vancouver and rent him a room in the outskirts. It seems unlikely that Trump would have offered Canada sufficient concessions to get them to extradite him, "we lowered our tariffs by ten percent but in turn we got Hunter Biden" would not play well with his voters -- they were never chanting about locking him up the way they were about Mrs Clinton. Sure, Trump would probably have wasted a few millions of taxpayer money to charge him with everything on the book, but in the end he would have been a target of opportunity rather than Trump's white whale.

Biden feeling the need to do anything about Hunter was a clear vote of no confidence in the US justice system. That is already a pretty damning signal to send by the president. But the fact that he did not pick the option available to most Americans in a similar situation -- exile -- is a hundred times more damning still. It is basically saying

Fuck equality before the law. I am president Biden, and I will not get on a plane to see my son for Chrismas like he was some Iranian or Chinese exile, like he was some commoner. If the price I need to pay for my convenience is to make it common knowledge that laws don't apply to the rich and the powerful (to the degree that anyone was still doubting that after Epstein), it is a price I will pay gladly.

Basically, every one of the millions of anti-ICE protesters has more balls (irrespective of gender identity) than all of the Biden family put together. They know that the eye of Sauron could fall on them at any minute and they could charged with making a false statement to a bank a decade ago, and that they would not have a powerful daddy who would pay Trump a bribe or make some deal getting them favorable prison conditions.

A great president would say that if the government imprisoned the innocent, then the right place for their innocent son would be to be imprisoned with his fellow countrymen. A decent president would send his son to comfortable exile -- about a million times less harsh than what random penniless political refugees or Assange have taken upon them to escape unjust punishment. Only a despicable president would refuse to make any trade-offs with regards to the signals he sends to his people.