You will have heard by now that U.S. President Joe Biden has granted his son Hunter a “full and unconditional pardon” for any and all crimes he committed between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024. This must have come as a great relief to Hunter. The younger Biden has been accused of a laundry list of crimes involving firearms, illegal drugs, prostitution, sexual abuse, and political corruption.
No doubt this will go down as the most famous presidential pardon in American history, surpassing even Gerald Ford’s granting immunity to Richard Nixon in 1964. Ford acted out of a (perhaps misguided) sense of civic duty. He wished to give the American people closure over the Watergate scandal. Biden, on the other hand, is simply protecting his own. He’s placing his family above the law.
This isn’t particularly novel, of course, nor even particularly interesting. Not a day goes by when a drunk-driving state senator doesn’t ask a weary police officer, “Do you know who I am?” Very few people would have acted differently if placed in Biden’s position, especially given his diminished mental capacity.
What’s startling—and disturbing—is how American liberals have responded. The denizens of r/politics, the 74th largest forum on Reddit, greeted the news with jubilation. “Lmfao Joe really said ‘I’m outta here I don’t give a **** anymore,’” the top comment reads. “Pardon Hunter, Pardon other people. Go wild, old man,” reads the second. And so on.
Nor is it only the internet trolls. Patrick Healey, the deputy opinion editor for The New York Times, fell over himself trying to justify Hunter’s pardoning. “Hunter Biden didn’t harm anyone,” he argues (dubiously), “and pardons go to people with connections all the time now.” Healey also engaged in a head-spinning bit of whataboutism: “Trump has indicated he would pardon January 6 insurrectionists, whose actions I’d argue were more disreputable and dangerous to the Republic than what Hunter Biden did.”
Reddit users also echoed the New York Times line. The third-highest comment on that post said this: “MAGA about to scream ‘Biden Crime Family!’ as Trump the fugitive appoints two in-laws with criminal records, at least two sex offenders, and a Russian asset to his cabinet.”
Granted, this is a small survey. But I think most any American would agree that it captures the mood of U.S. politics at this particular moment. Whenever our favorite politician is accused of breaking the law, we respond in two ways. First, we say that it serves the greater good. Secondly, the other side is just as bad. This is the way things work now. They go low, we go lower.
It may seem like a relatively small matter, but if we’re right—if this is, indeed, the standard to which Americans hold ourselves and our leaders—then we can safely say that the United States is not a functioning liberal democracy.
To be clear, I am not claiming that the corruption itself is the proof. There’s corruption in every form of government. The difference is that, in a liberal democracy, politicians hide their corruption. When they break the law, they do so in secret, because they are afraid of being caught and arrested or (at the very least!) voted out of office.
Today, America’s political leaders no longer operate according to the rule of law—nor do Americans wish for them to. They do not hide their corruption—nor do Americans wish for them to. Their ability to break the law with impunity is seen as a strength. So is their ability to punish their enemies by using the powers of their office to appoint ideologically sympathetic judges, bureaucrats, etc.
Now’s not the time to open the can of worms that is election-rigging. Let it suffice to say that both major parties are accused of electoral fraud by their opponents whenever they win a presidential election—and those accusations are almost always plausible. Republicans and Democrats are fairly open about their willingness to undermine the rule of law and the popular will in order to seize or maintain power.
Once again, I’m not saying that gerrymandering, disinformation, or election-rigging are new phenomena. What I’m saying is that, in ages past, these things were done covertly. There was a sense that voters would react negatively to corruption. Not so today.
In short, our system of government is quite similar to Ukraine’s. We are ruled by warring tribes of oligarchs. These oligarchs embrace the ceremonies of democracy but disregard basic liberal and democratic principles. And we expect nothing less. In fact, statesmen who refuse to game the system are accused of being weak, naïve, etc. Where do we go from here?
Before we even attempt to answer that question, we should simply allow this reality to sink in. Again, the United States is no longer a functioning liberal democracy. We are an illiberal oligarchy. That’s simply a fact. Any political analysis or platform which doesn’t account for this fact is, on its face, worthless.
Those who would prefer to restore our liberal democracy are faced with a near-impossible challenge. They must convince either the Republicans or the Democrats to start playing by the rules, to “be the bigger men” (or women). They must allow themselves to be martyred—politically, if not literally—for the rule of law and good manners. They must be willing to let go of power for the sake of the common good. What’s more, they must convince us that, in doing so, the other party will not simply establish a permanent stranglehold on the state. This, too, is not a prescription; it’s an observation. The American people are not wedded to the principles of liberalism or the democratic process—at least, not until they start losing.
One final thought. Commenting on the Biden-pardon scandal, David French writes:
When you talk to Trump voters, they’ll often share the conviction that Trump isn’t really all that different from other politicians. He’s just more blunt and direct about his goals and objectives, while his opponents act the same way Trump acts, but they conceal their corruption in high-minded rhetoric. This pardon fits that narrative perfectly.
David French is perhaps the most prominent ‘Never-Trump’ journalists. He rose to prominence as a columnist for National Review but now serves as a token conservative at The New York Times (maybe “conservative” should be in scare quotes).
I find French’s comments fascinating because, like every member of his class—that is, the political, economic, academic, cultural, and media elite—he begins with the assumption that the ‘Trump narrative’ is wrong. And whenever some evidence of gross, systemic legal and moral corruption bubbles to the surface, their response is always the same: ‘It’s unfortunate that this will feed into Trump’s narrative.’
They did it when Jeffrey Epstein’s dirty laundry was hung up on the line. They did it when a newly-elected senator is tied to the world’s largest producer of fentanyl. They did it when evidence emerged that the Biden administration was using the Ukrainian government to launder taxpayer money to BlackRock. The line is always the same: “Worst of all, this is going to fuel those conspiracy-theory whackjobs!” At what point, Mr. French, does evidence for the “‘rump narrative’ become so overwhelming that it can no longer be denied?
Let me say one last time that I’m not blaming Democrats and exonerating Republicans. It’s true that Trump’s GOP tends to be more honest about the nature of America’s plutocracy. But let’s not forget that, before Trump, a similar narrative was being pushed by Democrats like Bernie Sanders. If a conservative tells the truth, it’s far-right propaganda. If a liberal tells the truth, it’s far-left propaganda.
This is the broken thinking we need to move beyond if we’re ever going to have a constructive—or even vaguely realistic—conversation about how best to move forward as a country. The United States is no longer a liberal democracy, much less a constitutional republic. We are an illiberal oligarchy. The sooner we get that into our heads, the better.
