Unpardonable

 

I guess you could do a search to "Lowry", "Trump" and pardon to read whatever the argument behind this is, but I'm going to go ahead and give the counterargument, sight-unseen and link-unlinked:

Convicting a former president for crimes isn't a violation of norms but a necessary function of criminal justice. Pardoning Trump would give the impression that there was something right or permissible in Trump's continuing to have documents he had no business having, even obstructing justice to keep them. A pardon would send the message that what Trump did is somehow right--it was not.

Regarding the "poison in American politics"--have you met Trump? Taken all in all, Trump's rhetoric has been a driving force in lowering the quality and raising the rancor of today's rhetoric. But it isn't simply a question of his words. He has elevated the worst people, politically. His taking of the documents did not exist in a vacuum, but after a lifetime of crime-adjacency as part of his business practices and after two impeachments for which his very forgiving political allies refused to convict him.

One of those impeachments regarding a terrible lie, which continues to be promoted--that the 2020 election was stolen, and that conservatives should remain in a state of mental civil war about that. A pardon would send the message that Trump himself is right, justified, vindicated--he should not be.

But a kernel of the idea that a pardon should take place isn't at all about the national dialogue, or throwing oil on troubled waters, or even letting Trump hang on to some shreds of dignity. It has to do with not casting a permanent stain against the party that nestled him in their bosom, even knowing he was a snake all along.

Let us be normal! Pardon Trump and wash us all!

But that isn't a President Biden problem. It isn't an American politics problem. That right there is a Republican problem, and they should very much figure it out themselves. 

And if they can't? I don't think the problem is they can't--it's about the work they'd have to do. But it's still their problem.

UPDATE: Just to follow up--Asa Hutchinson, who is pretty old-school about whether doing felonies is bad, wanted the party to re-think pledging to the winner of the primary if he (ahem) happened to be a convicted felon. The RNC (basically a tool of billionaire donors and terrified of making RW extremists mad) basically told Hutchinson he was being the asshole, here, which, I'm sorry, he's not.  They are pretty much setting up for going down with the Titanic when everybody can already see the iceberg coming up.

Also, Trump is demanding his rivals agree that if they win, they will pardon him. This is the equivalent of a top dog pissing all over his territory to let everyone know what's up. He doesn't think anyone but him will win the primary, but in any event, he will make goddamn sure they are just as fucked in a general election as he is. 

As a Democrat, these things don't concern me. But they are very revelatory of the brokenness of the GOP and the sort of things that need fixed to not be (waves up and down) this.