> Ford at least had the misguided excuse of wanting to put the scandal behind and focus on the future.
I'm more concerned with the effects of the pardons on the country and on democracy than I am with judging the rectitude of the pardoner. Allowing the President to escape the law set a terrible precedent with obvious repercussions into the present.
I'm not trying to defend Trump. My point is that the stage was set for Trump. Abuses of executive power, of which I've given two egregious examples—Watergate and Iran-Contra—have been swept under the rug for far too long. To always "put the scandal behind and focus on the future" is to encourage future misbehavior. I would note that in stark contrast, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has just gone to prison.
I'm more concerned about the effects of this constant "both sides" legitimization of fascism and the constant shift of the Overton window than I am about the effect of pardons.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Where is "both sides" coming from when Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Trump are all Republicans? And where in the world do you get "legitimization" from my comments, other than how Presidential pardons have practically legitimized crimes in office?
The response to every new overreach by Trump is "this is just more of what's been going on" when it absolutely is not, it's dramatically different. Today's Republicans are a very different beast from Gerald Ford's. It's absolutely "both sides"ing the issue.
> The response to every new overreach by Trump is "this is just more of what's been going on"
This is a strange take on my comments. To be absolutely clear: I object in the strongest possible terms to the crimes of the Nixon and Reagan administrations and to the subsequent pardons of Nixon and Reagan administration officials. I have no desire to legitimize those pardons, and indeed I think the pardon power should have been eliminated or at least strictly limited a long time ago. Moreover, I objected to your attempt to minimize those past scandals, which you described as "nothing".
Thus, my comments are in no way a defense or legimitimization of Trump. They become a defense of Trump only in your own mind when you insist on discounting the past, which I do not. And when I suggested that previous pardons set the stage for Trump, I meant that shielding the executive branch from the legal consequences of their crimes only emboldens someone like Trump to act without any fear of legal consequences for his own crimes in office. The terrible precedents set in the past have come back to haunt us in the present. Again, that's not "legitimization" in any sense.
Trump is the kind of actor who will explore the entire space of pardons; the history of this does not matter. He does not know the path-dependency of what will be tolerated.
I'm afraid that you've missed the point. The crimes were Watergate and Iran-Contra. The pardons, which came later, indeed from different Presidents in subsequent administrations, allowed previous administrations to escape legal consequences of their crimes.
Granting pardons is not by itself a crime. Should pardons be eliminated or strictly limited? Sure. But pardons are not really the main issue with the Trump administration. Rather, the main issue is general lawlessness and abuse of power. When I mentioned setting the stage, I didn't mean setting the stage for granting pardons specifically but rather setting the stage for abusing executive power generally.
If you asked Donald Trump about the “beautiful” Watergate office complex, what would he say? If you asked him which commentator on Fox News might be most familiar with Iran-Contra, would he know? His reaction to being given power is to test it. Gerald Ford is not goading him into this.