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Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
It was shocking enough that Donald Trump chose one of his daughters’ father-in-law to be the US ambassador to France and another to be his envoy to the Middle East. The first, Charles Kushner, father of Ivanka Trump’s wife Jared, is also a convicted felon.
The fear that Trump will turn America into a banana republic is not unusual. But Joe Biden robbed the Democrats of a chance to take the top spot by becoming the first US president in history to pardon his offspring.
The timing of Biden’s blanket immunity act for his son Hunter was unfortunate. This allowed Trump to distract from his nepotism. In principle, it was sad. The rule of law in America seems like a game where the well-connected always have a get-out-of-jail-free ticket.
Whoever else Trump is targeting with his retaliation powers, Hunter Biden is now off that list. But history will not dwell on Joe Biden’s role in enabling Trump’s return to power. It’s no excuse that Biden’s help was unwitting. Biden has been president for four years and has failed to hold Trump accountable for attempting to subvert American democracy.
Other countries, notably Brazil, which once truly could be called a banana republic, may enforce their own laws. Its former president, Jair Bolsonaro, is barred from running for high office until 2030 for trying to overturn his defeat in the 2022 election. The best Biden could do was revive the adage that if you go for the king, you better not miss. He missed Trump by a mile.
But it’s worse than that. Biden clung to his dreams of a second term long enough to spoil things for his party. Kamala Harris takes the lion’s share of the blame for losing to Trump last month. But the greater responsibility rests with Biden. By refusing to step down until the end of July, he deprived the Democratic Party of the opportunity to hold primaries.
Harris had barely 100 days to devise a coherent alternative to America’s most protean figure in decades. That she came within a point or two of Trump’s figure is a feat. That she probably shouldn’t have been nominated in the first place is to Biden’s credit. Not only did he stubbornly stay put until too late, his support ensured that Harris would have no competition.
There is no doubt that the Biden family story is a tragic one. In any context, the unconditional love of a father for a deeply flawed son is touching. Hunter Biden was targeted by Republicans as a way to get hold of his father. Most Americans who lied on a gun registration form about substance abuse would get a slap on the knuckles. Hunter was threatened with prison until his father pardoned him.
Still, the 10-year scope of Biden’s pardon (dating back to 2014) was designed to cover the time when Hunter tried to cash in on the fact that his father was vice president. Hunter Biden had nothing but his last name to commend him to business partners in Ukraine, China and elsewhere. His selling point was access to power. There is no evidence that Biden did anything to help his son’s business. But there is no evidence that he even tried to prevent such an imprudent undertaking.
It’s no coincidence that Biden’s pardon came after Trump named Kash Patel — a relentless Trump loyalist with no other credentials — as his next FBI director. Patel has repeatedly promised to jail Trump’s enemies. As America’s top cop with sweeping investigative powers, he will be Trump’s sword of vengeance. Memories of the ruin that J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI brought to so many careers during the McCarthy Red Scare and beyond are suddenly relevant.
Hunter Biden’s name appears on that list of enemies. But so do dozens of others. Biden could also pardon colleagues and allies for the crimes that exist in the imaginations of Patel and Trump. It might be his last act. But he has already tainted the process. He has spent years telling Americans that no one is above the law. The daylight between Biden and Trump is now obscured by fog.
Trump’s amazing skill as a politician is to tap into people’s cynicism. Instead of upholding American ideals, he appeals to those who see them as a hypocritical fraud. In that pursuit, Trump owes his opponents gratitude, not persecution.
Though overused, it’s hard to forget WB Yeats’ line that “the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Those words preoccupy both Biden and Trump. The rule of law in America is about to get the mother of all stress tests. If he fails, Biden will play a role in weakening the guardrails.
