No need to reconcile with Trumpism, only defeat it
This is the best I’ve seen on the chronology of 1/6 events:
But this from The New Yorker is the best I’ve seen conveying the motives and impunity of the participants (sorry it won’t embed). The religiously motivated and overwhelmingly white male rioters felt entitled. Some of them came prepared to capture or kill members of Congress. There is no doubt what they would have done had they gotten hold of Nancy Pelosi. There is also no doubt who inspired their attack on The Capitol: President Trump and Senators Cruz and Hawley.
Less clear is how much coordination there was before the attack. Certainly the White House communicated with the demonstration organizers about his appearance at the Ellipse. The question is what the President understood about their intentions thereafter. Several members of Congress have reported on tours of The Capitol, which is closed to visitors during the Covid-19 epidemic, conducted the day before the riot. Those will have been organized by members of Congress or their staffs. There are also indications that some rioters knew the layout of the offices, though they appear not to have known about escape routes.
I would want much more clarity on these issues and others before any trial in the Senate. That and likely interference with President-elect Biden’s legislative agenda argue for a pause on delivering the impeachment to the upper house. Delay also has the virtue of leaving Trump in suspense, thereby preventing him from rousing his followers for another attack on The Capitol or another outrage for fear of generating a guilty verdict, reached with Republican support. There should be a trial, but there is no need for alacrity.
In the meanwhile, we are all anticipating Trump’s pardons for his family, his associates, and maybe himself, as well as anyone else who pays the right fixers and makes the right promises. But there is no requirement that pardons be publicized. So we may not learn about them before the Inauguration. There is not even a requirement that a pardon be written, though a verbal one with no supporting documentation wouldn’t likely stand up in court. Trump could however give signed notes to each person pardoned to produce only when they are indicted, months or even years later. A self-pardon is a manifest absurdity. You can’t “grant” yourself something. Doing so would be the epitome of corruption: abuse of public office for private gain.
Some are urging that Biden pardon Trump, claiming that reconciliation and bipartisanship would then be easier. I don’t buy that argument at all. Reconciliation is only possible with accountability. Bipartisanship is going to work with people who voted to certify the election results, not those who refused to do so. Biden should do nothing to reduce the growing split in the Republican Party, which has the potential to purge it of Trumpism, or at least to generate a new, truly conservative party that might cooperate with more moderate Democrats on issues like Covid-19, the economy, police brutality, and climate change.
The extremists who refused to certify votes knew full well that there was no widespread or systematic fraud in the election, evidence for which would have shown up by now. What they and the rioters were saying is that the votes of black and brown people in Democratic cities should not be counted. They filed dozens of law suits with that as the explicit objective. They were defending white privilege and power. Trumpism is, at its heart, racism. There is no need to reconcile with it, only defeat it.
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