Dec 5, 2024 04:55 IST
First published: 5 December 2024 at 04:55 IST
A presidential pardon in America — and in democracies — is an opportunity to seize the moral high ground. Joe Biden’s “Full and unconditional” forgiveness to his sonThe hunter, does not represent only a retreat and abandonment. It also smacks of hypocrisy undermining the Democratic Party, and lends weight to criticisms that, for all their religious rhetoric, its leaders are only in it for themselves. As recently as June, Biden said that “I abide by the jury’s decision … I will not pardon him (Hunter)”. The White House has repeated Biden’s claim several times this year. Arguments in support of outgoing President Biden’s actions — that the conviction was part of a “witch hunt” and that, barring a pardon, Hunter would be persecuted by the Donald Trump-led White House and Justice Department — are just Republicans’ gripes. In the last four years. What’s more, other US presidents have used pardons questionably. Given how Washington champions a “rules-based order” globally, and rebukes other countries on this count, the apology seems all the more undeserved.
Hunter Biden has been convicted of drug use and tax evasion while purchasing a gun. Her actions and beliefs were actually used by Republicans on the campaign trail — just as the issues against Trump were a major part of Kamala Harris’ platform. Biden’s argument for the pardon echoes Trump’s response to the cases against him: “I also believe that crude politics has miscarried justice.” It’s not just a father making sure his son doesn’t go to jail. Some Democrats have criticized his actions. It speaks to the decline of liberal politics which sees an action as reprehensible only when it is committed by the opposition. Finally, the argument that a pardon is constitutional and legal distracts from a larger issue: a pardon not granted for moral reasons—for a free-speech activist whistleblower or protester—violates the justice principle.
After the US election – and the fall of centrist and centre-left governments in many countries – liberal politics is facing a challenge and a question: Why are voters who once supported such parties abandoning them? Part of the answer may lie in the widening gap between the talk of equality of opportunity and the reality of selective justice. In America, Biden’s decision and lack of criticism from his own camp have given voters no reason to change that view.