Donald Trump obviously doesn’t like to be upstaged by anyone, whether for good or for ill.
On the same day that Joe Biden left office with a slew of precedent-shattering preemptive pardons, Donald Trump came into office eclipsing those both in volume and in controversy.
Trump’s decision to pardon all of the more than 1,500 individuals — both those convicted and those who had not yet gone to trial — involved in one of the worst assaults on democracy in our nation’s history is an affront to justice and the rule of law. Instead of letting those be fully punished whom he incited to riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, he has tried to turn them into heroes.
It won’t work, except with those so blinded by Trump’s spell or so fearful of his political power that they are willing to substitute lies and emotion for truth and reason.
Prior to Trump’s inauguration, some of his allies in Congress and even some key members of his inner circle, indicated that they did not believe Trump would go so far as to pardon those who were part of the mob violence that left 100 police officers injured. They obviously don’t know their leader very well, and too many of them have responded to the pardons either with silence, equivocation or even wholehearted approval.
The capitulation of the Republican Party to Trump is so complete that the supposed party of law and order has become the party that largely turns its head if the assault on the justice system and those who enforce our nation’s laws suits the GOP’s political purposes.
Trump has no respect for norms and has largely been able to get away with it, thanks to a GOP with little backbone, the best courtroom stalling that money can buy and a large slice of the electorate that overlooks or glosses over his many flaws because it agrees with him on most matters of policy.
It is obvious what Trump is trying to do with the pardons. As with the dishonest phrasing he peddles, such as referring to the Jan. 6 criminals as “hostages,” he is attempting to rewrite history. The apropos quote, often attributed to Britain’s World War II prime minister, Winston Churchill, is: “History is written by the victors.” The idea is that the winners — in war or in politics — have the power to shape how historical events are recorded and interpreted, often favoring their narrative, no matter how spun or fabricated, over that of the losers.
The revisionist history of Jan. 6 may take hold for a while, but eventually the truth will resurface. There are too many hours of video, too many volumes of testimony, too many prosecutors’ detailed interviews and too much credible research to cover up what happened.
Trump, in a desperate and unsuccessful effort to hold onto power following an election he lost, defiled democratic traditions and put the lives of police officers, members of Congress and their staffers and his own vice president at risk.
Neither his return to power nor his pardons will erase that truth for those whose eyes are open.
