Presidential Pardons - when would you call it corrupt?

[hollodero]

(01-18-2021, 10:03 PM)Dill Wrote: Two quick points: 1) "both sides do it" is rarely the basis of accurate political analysis. We hear it sometimes from one side (usually the liberal) when they want to find common policy ground and know they cannot begin by just blaming others, even if (as you recognize) one side does it more. We also hear it from one side (usually the conservative) when some incident casts doubt on party character--like a president's impeachable behavior. It then becomes a means of spreading or mitigating blame, deflecting any implication that a party's judgement as a whole might be flawed. Most of the time, it is a mirror image imposed on the surface of a political conflict, in which each side may indeed be accusing the other of the same thing, which may look very different once one looks deeper into material/social causes of division--and whether the accusations are actually true. It is rarely a useful analytical tool, how ever politically useful it might sometimes be. Rather it superimposes a pattern upon conflict which may not really be there and so distorts analysis.

2) If we are really trying to understand causes, which may be necessary to finding workable solutions, then we ought to begin by trying to understand what material/social forces have conditioned the aforementioned division. When we do that, I don't think we'll find find the two major parties have somehow became mirror images of one another, each equally willing to "ignore reality and defend the indefensible."  The divisive rhetoric from Congressional leaders, for example, was simply not there through most of the '70s and '80s. There is a before and after. It its origins can be dated, traced to  individuals, to one party, as can the incremental ratcheting up of that rhetoric, aided and abetted by new technologies and legal innovations, leading us to a point where now 74% of Republicans believe that Biden was not legitimately elected president. The other side has sometimes attempted to respond in kind, but generally without success because its constituents for the most part do not respond to that rhetoric. That is a very thin summary, but accurate enough to dispute the notion of a mirror image.

Some added notes: The "strict political duality" in the U.S. has, since the 18th century, not been "us vs them," but compromisers, pragmatists and unifiers vs those who embrace "us-vs-them."  And that is still what we have.

I don't think Trump figured out that we're "always out to argue a win for [our] own side and a loss for the other side, up to a willingness to ignore reality and defend the indefensible."  I think he just noticed that when he promised racist and xenophobic policies, a segment of the public responded quickly. When he did it more, they responded more, and he responded to them, thereby building, organizing and fixing that previously suppressed xenophobia into a formidable political force and some terrible short term policies. Along the way he discovered that some checks and balances would fail if he pushed against them hard enough. And so he pushed harder. A right wing media machine primed this audience for him two decades before his election, and he rode it into office and out all accountability, until Jan. 6.  All this has not happened because "both sides" are equally ready to "defend the indefensible."

Even if a president can still legally "do what he wants" in this environment, it is not at all clear that each side wants to elect someone who will JUST do what he wants. You yourself think rule of law is important. If people want to live under rule of law, then they must elect representatives who also think that and hold them accountable. That is one reason why so many the "D" mattered to so many people. The division in the US right now appears to be between people who agree with you about the importance of rule of law and those who want a form of law and order, which can trump rule of law.  I don't think Biden will be defended by "all means necessary" in the coming year, as Trump was over the last four. 

This was a quick way to take my comments apart :) I just was getting at that times have changed gradually, and within the last years also changed drastically. One thing that changed drastically is that there is less and less objectiviable truth, or objectifiable bad optics for that matter. This of course has much to do with people choosing their sources by their beliefs and can reaffirm pretty much everything they want. This makes dialogue increasingly difficult up to impossible, and that does much to create divisions that are brand-new.

The media world adapted, is increasingly aggressive towards the political foe, and left much decency behind that was a necessary tool to keep your century-old political system afloat. Decency and honor, those things got lost quickly. Many of your office holders lost much of both at light speed these last few years. And while sure the Trump supporting republican crowd in Congress is unmatched, quite some democrats followed that trend as well. Ripping apart state of the union speeches and such.

And the political discourse - it also devolves to people just entrenched and increasingly unable to even try to understand each other. Which also is a "both sides" issue, albeit possibly also not an "all sides do equally bad" issue. One sees it here, and in the media, and pretty much everywhere. And in such a climate, Trump is the fitting candidate, that does not have to unite, seek compromise or dialogue, like it used to be necessary, but just rely on loyalty of R voters and enthusiasm of an increasing number of deeply frustrated (and similar adjectives) people that are the Trump base. That's what I was trying to get at.