A Democrat's Call to Pardon Donald Trump

Let’s take account of where we are as a country and the unique opportunity we have right now.

We’re still divided.  The election has only confirmed just how divided we are.  Republicans (for the most part) came out and voted for Trump, and Democrats came out and voted for Biden.  Nearly 71,000,000 people felt the policy-alignment they had with Trump outweighed the personal and "temperament” shortcomings of the president.  71,000,000 people don’t trust Biden to protect their interests from what they see as the dismantling of American capitalism, individualism and religious-faith that have guided our nation for centuries.  There is no trust across the chasm today - and no amount of speech-making will change that.

We have a window of opportunity.  It will take years of work and compromise to bridge the chasm, but right now we have a unique and fleeting opportunity to jumpstart the process.  Once we return to bickering on individual issues it will be too late.  But if we lay foundations of tentative trust today - as we pause to transition power - we will be able to take unified action on other issues much sooner than we would without that basis.  Those foundations will be tenuous, but can solidify over time.  

We need several huge non-stupid and non-futile gestures right now, and Joe Biden is just the guy to do it:

• Announce that you will Pardon Donald Trump for any crimes committed in office.  Show Republicans that we are serious about focusing on the future, and eliminate the inevitable rancor, divisiveness and distraction that would accompany any prosecutions.  Healing our country is more important than the sins of any one man.
  
  
• Announce that you will not pack the court.  The threat of packing the court feels as unjust and manipulative to Republicans as the debacle of holding up the Garland nomination felt to Democrats.  Let’s de-weaponize the issue in the name of healing.
  
  
• Include at least 2 Republicans in your cabinet.  Inclusion like this shows Republicans that we are willing to work across the aisle, and brings practical advantages.  Embracing influencers and policy makers into the administration will help garner support for compromise-based legislation.

I’m a lifelong Democrat, and most of my liberal friends will disagree strongly with this post - especially the idea of pardoning Trump.  Even writing this down was difficult for me personally. But as I’ve lived with the idea for the past two days, I realize that I care more about being able to converse again with my many conservative friends and relatives than I like the idea of holding Trump accountable. The more I sit with the idea, the happier I am letting go of the past; I’ve found some peace in writing this post and imagining that future.

It is hard to forgive.  It is hard to move past the pain we’ve felt for four years.  It is hard not to attempt to balance the scales and seek a fair accounting of past sins.  But when the cost of justice is the continuation of the vitriolic chasm we have in our country, we must not pay that price. 

An Opportunity for Healing on the Supreme Court

I’m still angry.  I’m not normally like this when it comes to politics.  Sure, I’m a left-leaning democrat, but I take pride in building bridges with people.  I never demonize those I disagree with; I never label people as ignorant just because they see the world differently than I do; I always seek to understand opposing points of view.  

I’ve now lived through several years with Donald Trump as president, and though I believe I've seen the sanctity of the office of President trampled, I refuse to disrespect those who support him.  I understand there are good reasons some choose to vote for him: you may believe he speaks for you when no one else will, or you may prefer his perspective to the more liberal ideological alternative.  I do not pretend that I have the right to tell Trump supporters who to vote for: the Constitution says all our votes count.  If we don’t all agree to the rules, then we don’t have a country at all.

This is my philosophy: treat all people with respect, and treat the rules of the road with respect, even if you disagree with the result.   So, even when I've been deeply disappointed (e.g. - Gore concedes), felt misled by leadership (e.g. Bush justifies Iraq), and disgusted (e.g. - Trump doesn't disavow racist supporters), I didn't get angry.  

Here’s a relevant example from 2005: when my liberal friends argued we should fight “tooth and nail” against George W. Bush's nominations of Alito and Roberts to the Supreme Court, I disagreed.  Both were legal scholars deserving consideration, and rules didn’t provide solid ground to reject them.

Why was I willing to concede this all important ground?  Why not fight to keep the court more liberal?  For one simple reason: the rules of America said I didn’t have the right to.  The “rules” I’m referring to are no less than the United States Constitution and its amendments, as well as the common understanding of how it has been applied to government for generations. In the case of the Bush nominations, the country had elected Bush twice, and “the rules” gave him the right to make the nominations.  As liberals, we had every right to fight the next battle at the ballot box for a new president, but no right to reject strong legal scholars prepared to fairly judge the cases in front of them, merely because we disagreed with them.

But the Garland nomination failure made me angry. I will never look at the other side of the aisle the same way again.  Mitch McConnell and the Republican Party’s sidelining of the Garland nomination is the single most divisive, immoral, unjust and unfair action I’ve ever seen occur in American politics in my lifetime. 

It is 100% clear that the Republican Party chose to break the rules because they disagreed with the result they foresaw and not because they truly believed that the Constitution gave the American public the right to “vote” on the next Justice in an election year.  And today we have indisputable proof of their hypocrisy: within hours of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death Mitch McConnell has already announced that there will be no delay in the consideration of Trump’s next nomination.  

McConnell's “opposite party” argument is obviously specious.  If he actually believed that Republicans regaining control the Senate in the 2014 mid-terms represented a change in the electorate's mood -- thus justifying appointment delay -- then the same should apply today given that the Democrats regained control of the House in 2018.

But let's not get distracted calling out hypocrisy over an argument that made no sense in the first place.  Instead, let's consider how we can make things better.

Here is what I propose. Republicans across the country (elected officials and everyday folks), I implore you to support that we even the score and begin to heal the damage that was done in 2016.  Apply the same standard for this single Supreme Court opening that was unfairly applied then: delay the consideration of this nomination until after the election.  Let’s turn the death of an undisputedly great legal scholar into a healing moment for our country and subjugate our partisanship for the higher purpose of righting an obvious wrong and bridging just one major divide between us.  Then, let’s together return to the time-proven Constitution's intent and long-held understanding that it is the Senate’s sworn duty to consider court nominations in a timely manner.

Right a wrong.  Start the healing with this, the most egregious of wrongs, and prove that finding a way to live together with widely divergent views is not only possible, but fundamental to keeping America prosperous for all of its citizens.