Other than the election and everything related to it, one thing stuck in my craw this past week, and it stuck there hard, so much so that I can't cough it up. At her daily briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked if President Joe Biden would pardon his son Hunter, who is facing sentencing after pleading guilty to federal charges related to tax evasion and lying on an application for buying a gun. She responded, "We've been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no."
Now, you can tell me that Joe Biden respects the law and lots of such shit. But Hunter Biden was the subject of a slavering witch hunt by Republicans who were out to destroy his life for simply being Joe Biden's son. The fact that we know anything about him at all is a testament to how clean Joe Biden's record is: they had nothing on the father, so they went after the son so they could make the father guilty by association. In other words, the motherfuckers wanted blood, and they weren't going to stop until they got it.
Yet here's Joe Biden, who is not only leaving office, but that office is being taken over by the man who put the target on his family's backs. When a parent has the power to save a child from a pack of wolves, that parent has an obligation to pluck the child to safety. Sure, the GOP and the gabbling goblins on the right would lose their shit, but they'll lose their shit if Hunter Biden is sentenced to anything other than the death penalty.
It's ragingly frustrating. Pardon your son, Joe. Jesus Christ, use the power you fucking have while you have it. Don't let the bastards get everything they want. Fucking hell.
In late 2019, I wrote that I didn't want Biden to be the Democratic nominee because he believed too much that he could work with Republicans and that he wouldn't bother punishing Trump and the fuckers who aided and abetted his crimes. Biden actually said at a fundraiser back then, "With Donald Trump out of the way, you’re going to see a number of my Republican colleagues have an epiphany. Mark my words. Mark my words...It’s going to take two things: One is somebody who in fact, knows how to reach across the aisle and get things done."
I know we all blame Merrick Garland for the failure to prosecute Trump quickly and we want to hang him up like pinata and pummel him (rhetorically, of course). But I would not be the least bit surprised if Joey Gladhand up there didn't hold the Justice Department back, thinking that not going after Trump would buy him some good will with the GOP as he tried to get shit done. He learned the lesson that all Democrats are cursed to learn too late: Republicans are motherfuckers and they will try to fuck mother every chance they get. That's what they do. It's right there in the word.
Biden made restoring norms that Trump had shit on and tossed into the garbage more important than wielding power. But he didn't realize that institutionalists like him were worthless in the Trump-warped DC landscape he returned to. And Democrats followed his lead. Sure, they were able to get some pretty amazing things passed, but they never used the power they had. When Jim Jordan, who looks like if armpit sweat were a person, defied a House committee subpoena, they never once threatened to bring charges against him or have him arrested. They just let it go. That was a pattern: Republicans do or say something outrageous and Democrats just keep their heads down and plow ahead, not realizing the outrage is actually hurting them. If you're MMA fighting but you want to treat it like a boxing match and only use those moves, don't be surprised when you get kicked in the throat and land on the ground, gasping for breath.
It continues even after the 2024 election. We went through a couple of years of Biden and Democrats telling us that Donald Trump's reelection is an apocalyptic event that will wreck our nice democracy and shatter our alliances around the world and send the country reeling into despair. But what does Biden do after Trump won? He fucking congratulates him and tells the country that everything is just fine. No. Just fucking no. Be mad. Chastise us. Tell us it's fucked up and now we need to be vigilant or Trump will shred what remains of our national character. "I've said many times, you can't love your country only when you win," Biden said after the election. But you don't need to roll over and pretend shit's not fucked up. Biden loved his son when his son was fucking up, but he sure as shit let Hunter know he was fucking up and needed to do something about it.
I'm not blaming Biden directly for Kamala Harris's loss. I don't know what would have happened if he had dropped out early and Democrats had gone through a bruising primary battle. But I am blaming him for allowing Trump to be able to run. I blame him for not immediately having the lead insurrectionist arrested after inauguration. Like Barack Obama's failure to hold Wall Street bankers or George W. Bush to account for all their crimes, it casts a pall over the presidency and the system of justice. The only way ruthless assholes learn to back down is to be a ruthless asshole to them.
I'm writing this as a way of saying that the Democratic leadership of the future should not be so invested in returning to doing business as usual. Biden promised us that, but it wasn't enough because Republicans and their media outrage machine didn't fucking want it and Trump wouldn't allow it. That ship of comity and cooperation has sailed the fuck away. If we ever have another election, whoever emerges as a leader out of the reckoning that Democrats are having would have to be a take-no-prisoners destroyer of norms because norms aren't fucking laws. No one gets punished for not doing things the Way They've Always Been Done, so don't. Break open the Supreme Court. Fire anyone who Trump leaves behind (like Postmaster Louis Dejoy). Fuck process. Fuck procedure. Fuck any of it that gets in the way of putting this strain of politics in this country in its grave. Republicans learned that the only thing that should encumber them is laws, and then they will test those laws until they reach the breaking point or they can get away with whatever the fuck they want to do. I'm not saying to be the abject Constitution-haters Republicans are, but, Jesus fuck, murder the Senate weirdness like nominees being held up when a senator from that state objects. Use power like you like having power.
Institutionalism is bullshit. Tradition is often just another word for "behind the times." Goddamn, I can't get over that the president won't even pardon his maligned and persecuted son because of a belief in the innate goodness of institutions. Biden's tragic flaw, like its been for so many Democrats, is believing that if you just show your opponent that you're playing by the rules honestly, they'll respect that and work with you. It simply doesn't work that way anymore (if it ever truly did). The price we now have to pay for that fucked up adherence to an idealized past is incalculable. Despite all the good that Biden did do, much of what he got done will now be reversed by these jabbering jackals who could give a shit less if it hurts people to do it. Despite having made a significant contribution to helping the working class, mitigating climate change, getting us out of a pandemic, and more, that failure by Biden to evolve, even after having a front-row seat to Republicans obstructing Barack Obama endlessly, even while watching Republicans devolve in increasing and frightening ways, will be his legacy.
(Note: Well, that and his failure to even attempt to rein in Benjamin Netanyahu, but that's a post for another time.)
