I’d say it will be mostly forgotten about about a month.
Yep. The right wing will be too consumed with their debate over whether President Harris worked for 6 weeks or 1 month at a McDonalds 40 years ago.
Yes and no. It will be forgotten by the news media and the population at large in about a month, but right wingers will remember it and bring it up as a whataboutism for decades to come.
Sure, like they do with Mark Rich. But no one else cares.
We can’t consider the voters as either Republicans or Democrats. Although that’s where they get the bulk of their votes, neither party can win with just their dedicated voters. To win, they need some of their voters to come from the blob of undecided, independent, apathetic, uninformed, and new voters. Biden interfering with Hunter’s sentence will be a net gain for votes going to the Republicans from that blob. I can’t say how much of an effect it will have, but it will pull some voters from that middle blob to vote for Republicans. It won’t cause any of those voters to vote for Democrats. On the other hand, Biden staying out will cause some votes to go to the Democrats because some people will see the integrity. Plus, it means that the Democrats don’t lose those votes that would have gone to the Republicans. If Biden interferes, the only result I can see is that it’s a gain for votes going to the Republicans and reduction in votes for Democrats.
ETA: I don’t mean just this election. I mean elections going forward. Biden interfering will be used as material for “Democrats are corrupt” messaging used in future elections.
biden could wait until his last minute in office. the election is way over and the new president is being sworn in.
Right. Do it (if he going to) late December, and it will blow over in the buzz of the new administration the following month. However, I agree with those who say he should stay out of it unless the sentence is ridiculous. Hunter can take his lumps.
This whole discussion seems moot to me.
Election day is in November. Biden’s loss of Presidential powers happens in January. Nothing that he will do vis-a-vis his son is going to affect what happens on election day.
Mark Rich is a really good example of the damage caused by pardons, but there’s a set of data I don’t have.
- On the day before he was pardoned, what percentage of Americans knew his name?
- Two days after the pardon, what percentage knew his name?
- One week later?
- One year later?
- Today?
Compare to real scandals, and names like Richard Nixon and Oliver North and Stormy Daniels.
The argument is that it will matter in the 2028 election and beyond. Personally, I don’t buy it.
And to help it blow over, we could start a rumor that Trump plans to pardon Erik and Jr if he’s elected.
Oh yeah, nothing matters much earlier than two weeks ago, in an election. This whole, 365 day presidential campaign track is mostly a waste of everyone’s time.
You can tell this by looking at the polling charts from 2016:
The Presidential Debates were on September 26, October 9, and October 19. At the completion of these, the probability that Trump would win had migrated from near 50/50 to 13/87. By November 4th, that had shifted back to the 35/65 that we entered the election on. The general public was able to override peer pressure, opinion news, etc. for about a week and remember what they’d seen with their own eyes. After that week, the outside pressure took over and slammed things almost all the way back to 50/50. Damn your lying eyes.
The only value in anything prior to 1-2 weeks time from election day is like pre-testing Biden vs Trump, to get a sense of whether you need to swap your candidate. Outside of that, you’re blowing money and political power for basically no gains.
If Harris pardons him, it might have political repercussions. If Biden does, after the election? That will not have legs.
I don’t know if Biden would commute his son’s sentence. But it’s not going to matter politically, either way, if he does.
And Roger Stone and Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon and George Papadopoulos and Elliott Broidy and Jared Kushner’s Dad Charles and Rod Blagojevich and and and…
Here’s a complete list of Trump’s pardons and commuted sentences:
It’s a long list. How many of those did anyone remember in this thread?
I recall quite a few of the more notorious ones. Many are truly disgraceful. Much worse than Biden commuting Hunter’s sentence. Those Trumps pardon contribute to my loathing of the man, but I’m not sure it’s possible to really lower my opinion of him.
There’s lots of places where two weeks before Election Day ain’t two weeks before voting. I can vote on September 26 if I don’t mind going to the county seat, and October 21 if I want a wide variety of more convenient locations, and that’s not counting the mail-in ballots.
Which is irrelevant right now, as nobody’s voting yet. But as early/mail voting opens up in various places, more and more voters can react to “what they’d seen with their own eyes” unless they’ve already turned in their vote.
We are in complete agreement.
My point, as I’m sure you know, is that despite the truly egregious nature of these Trump pardons, no one even remembered them in this thread, let alone a piddly little sentence commutation by a president whose son is made to suffer an outsized sentence due to partisanship.
I also agree with your earlier point that if this judge imposes a fair sentence, then yes, let Hunter take his lumps. And that’s exactly what I expect Joe Biden to do: Leave it alone unless the Trump-appointed judge decides to impose a really harsh sentence for what should have been – and almost was – a diversion case.
Except these hypothetical voters are just as likely to realize that Hunter is only where he is now because Republican corruption made him the centerpiece of their attack on his father. If he were anyone else, his plea bargains would probably have been accepted long ago, and this would be done with by now.
I mean, when was the last time you heard anything about “Biden Crime Family” or “Where’s Hunter?” As soon as Biden dropped out of the race, all that shit disappeared, because it was never really about justice, it was about the GOP using Hunter as a punching bag proxy for the President.
Didn’t Trump tweet (or twooth) “WHERE’S HUNTER” during Harris’s interview? It was one of many weird moments.
The fact that you’re not even sure shows how little attention this is getting now, when a month and a half ago, you couldn’t swing your arms without hitting a “Where’s Hunter!?!?!” post.
ETA: I mean, just look at this thread itself. It was bumped because of his guilty plea yesterday, but the previous post was on July 19th, because not even we could be bothered with it.