Let’s rewatch the tragedy on fast-forward: In 2020, Joe Biden was elected on promises of national reconciliation and safeguarding American democracy. The former was an illusion, the latter looks more vulnerable than ever. The veteran Democrat had claimed to set up his presidency as a contrast to his predecessor, Donald Trump: He clad himself in America’s proclaimed eternal values, promoting the rule of law and decency in the practice of power. Yet moral corrosion now marks the end of his term in office.
The exemplarity that Biden had prided himself on has just been shattered by the full presidential pardon he granted his son Hunter, who was facing the threat of two prison sentences. Both cases were indisputable: a written lie, about his drug addiction, made when purchasing a firearm; and extensive tax fraud. The established facts do not brook any discussion, even if the severity of the punishment that had been envisaged for Hunter Biden – potentially several years in prison – is not always meted out by American courts.
The arguments in President Biden’s defense brandished by some Democrats are extremely weak. They usually boil down to one name: Trump. In other words, there’s always worse. Biden lied, by promising not to pardon his son? Yes, but Trump has lied about everything: his taxes, his affairs, and even his responsibilities in legal cases that have earned him dozens of indictments, such as the coup attempt that led to the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. All of these arguments are true. Yet, with them, the Democrats have gotten their feet tangled up in the toga of their own grandiloquence.
‘Nobody believes anybody anymore’
Hasn’t Biden flouted the principles he claimed to defend, such as the separation of executive and judicial branches and respect for the rule of law? Their answer is once again “Donald Trump,” who has promised a campaign of vengeance against his “enemies from within,” be they political leaders, generals or judges. Or that, in a way, Biden had no other choice. The president, his supporters assert, is just so human – an 82-year-old father who couldn’t bear to see his imperiled son in prison, just as he himself was about to step down from power.
The pardon of Hunter Biden also helps blur any ethical distinction between Democrats and Republicans in the general public’s eyes. “Nobody believes anybody anymore,” reacted former president Bill Clinton, fatalistically, while saying that he understood the decision. The clichés about the elite “swamp” have been confirmed. The same nepotistic practices, a culture of privilege that is never acknowledged, but always blamed on the opponent, unite the two camps. The difference? Republicans lie to the public, Democrats lie to themselves.
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