Democrats Should Make Trump Pay for Selling Pardons

A no-brainer attack gets tripped up by progressive shibboleths

Generated by DallE-3, but only after I convinced it that the image above does not depict corruption. So, who knows…maybe they’re taking the dollar OUT of Trump’s pocket.

Why did Trump pardon Henry Cuellar, a Democratic congressman indicted for accepting $600,000 in bribes? A social media conspiracy theorist recently suggested that it was so that Cuellar would switch parties and give Republicans another seat. Here is the post from that social media conspiracy theorist:

It’s hard to deny the existence of a quid pro quo when Trump publicly complains that the other guy isn’t sticking to his end of the deal. There will never be an All The President’s Men-style political thriller about Trump because Trump often just blurts out his misdeeds publicly, often on video or in writing. The 2020s All the President’s Men reboot doesn’t have Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in a paper chase at the Library of Congress — it has Chris Pine and Rami Malek looking at their phones and going “Huh,” before writing an article called Five ‘White Lotus’ Moments That Only a 90s Kid Will Get, because nobody cares about the president being a crook.

Cuellar was far from Trump’s only strange pardon. He pardoned crypto magnate Changpeng Zhao after Zhao put $2 billion towards enriching the Trump family in a deal so fishy that a source familiar with the deal called it “nuts”. Trump has undercut his “murderous on drugs” stance by pardoning the former president of Honduras and drug kingpins in Chicago and Baltimore. He pardoned the January 6 rioters — including the ones who did a lot more than put their feet on Nancy Pelosi’s desk — and pardoned Rudy Giuliani, giving Giuliani a new lease on probably 2-3 weeks of life. Trump caught everyone off-guard by commuting the sentence of George Santos, whom he called “something of a rogue”, which is an unbelievable description — calling Santos “something of a rogue” is like calling Vladimir Putin “a wee bit cantankerous,” or Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs “a strong advocate for skin hydration.”

Anyone can see that Trump is at least protecting his allies, and probably also getting money. A competent Congress would investigate; this Congress will probably just name a post office after Hulk Hogan and knock off early. Which creates a messaging opportunity for Democrats that even a speechwriter as mediocre as myself — whose career peaked writing for the Assistant Secretary of Mouthwash and Gingivitis Affairs — could exploit. Here’s my pass at an attack ad:

[GRAINY, BLACK-AND-WHITE PICTURE OF TRUMP SMILING LIKE AN ASSHOLE]

Trump and his family are getting rich putting your family at risk. Trump has pardoned drug kingpins and corrupt politicians.

[SKETCHIEST-AVAILABLE PICTURES OF JUAN ORLANDO HERNANDEZ AND GARNETT GILBERT SMITH]

A crypto tycoon got off scott free after a two billion dollar deal with the Trump family.

[PICTURE OF CHANGPENG ZHAO LOOKING AS SHADY AND AS CHINESE AS POSSIBLE]

Trump said he’d help people make ends meet…

[UBIQUITOUS PHOTO OF A COUPLE AT A KITCHEN TABLE LOOKING FRAZZLED WHILE ADDING UP RECEIPTS WITH A GODDAMNED 1980S ADDING MACHINE — THOSE ADDING MACHINES ONLY STILL EXIST IN POLITICAL ADS!]

…but he’s used his office to enrich himself. And [INCUMBENT REPUBLICAN CONGRESSPERSON] has gone along with it.

[LEAST-FLATTERING AVAILABLE PHOTO OF INCUMBENT REPUBLICAN CONGRESSPERSON, POSSIBLY WITH EYES TURNING RED AFTER “GONE ALONG WITH IT”]

[LOCAL DEMOCRAT] will fight back against the White House’s pardon pipeline so that government works for the people, not the politically connected.

[PHOTOSHOPPED-PAST-THE-POINT-OF-RIDICULOUSNESS PHOTO OF LOCAL DEMOCRAT, WITH SPLIT-SCREEN PHOTO OFF INCUMBENT REPUBLICAN — ON THE TOILET, IF POSSIBLE — SLIDING IN ON THE WORDS “POLITICALLY CONNECTED”.

(Mumbled quickly) I’m [LOCAL DEMOCRAT] and I approve this message.

That script is about 80 percent true, which might make it the most truthful political ad in American history. It relates to an actual thing Congress can do — investigate the president — which is close to the only thing a Democratic House would be able to do. It puts Democrats in the “tough on crime” seat and hits populist notes without being a gigantic planet of bullshit.

I’m sure that some Democrats will take this line of attack. But I wonder if a few will get cold feet due to peculiarities of the moment. This first problem, obviously, is Joe Biden’s incredibly shady pardon of Hunter. Most Democrats want to avoid invoking Biden for any reason; they downplay him for the same reason that Jeff Goldblum doesn’t run around reminding people about Earth Girls Are Easy. Any talk of Trump’s pardons will be met with “What about Hunter,” and…yeah, fair point, what about that? A good “what about” response might be “That was bad and so is this — two things can be bad,” but some Democrats might demure out of loyalty or embarrassment.

The second problem is that the progressive left kind of likes pardons. This Propublica article examines Trump’s pardon abuses only after a thousand words of throat-clearing about how pardoning people convicted of drug offenses is good. The very first line of this article from The Prison Policy Initiative — whose mission is to “dismantle mass incarceration” — is “Pardons are one of the most important powers presidents have.” I don’t share progressives’ love for the pardon; I agree that some people have received overly-harsh sentences, but I think that the proper remedy comes from Congress and the courts, not a relic of Medieval kingship that’s rife for abuse. I think that letting one person issue a writ of “oh fuck it” is a bad system, but progressives like it, so they’re not eager to point out its downsides.

Still, Trump is definitely using pardons to bolster his allies, and he’s probably selling them, too. That’s an old grift — as recently covered on the “news from 100 years ago” part of my podcast — and voters historically don’t like it. It seems like a ready-made attack for Democrats. But whether they’ll take full advantage of it remains to be seen.

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