I do not think that pardons for J6ers are bad if it was done right. In fact, if it was done right it would have been a winner. There was hysterics on the J6ers that led to overcharging. I just read about a man who went into the capital and took pictures. Did nothing violent. At his trial the judge let the prosecutor run a six-minute film of capital violence that had only a few seconds of him filming in it. Clearly meant to emotionally influence the jury which it did. He got 2 years for basically trespassing. Assuming what I read is correct there is no justification for a sentence like that. Had Trump pardoned all non-violent J6ers then I would ignore his detractors and Trump can pull up cases like that one to embarrass Democrats.

Furthermore, he could have even made a case to lessen the sentence of some of the violent J6ers. I can fully believe that some of them were oversentence. I would want to see their sentences compared to those convicted of comparative crimes as I suspected they were oversentenced. Had Trump reduced their sentences to be comparable then he would have gotten flak but it would have been defensible. People may not have liked it but he would have had a fair double standard argument.

Yes, it would have taken some effort to go through each case and made determinations. But probably not that much time. Nonviolent offenders are automatic pardons. Violent crimes you seek out comparables and soon you would have a decent scale. He could have done this and kept his promise to pardon. And he would have put more egg on the face of Biden and his terrible pardons. Everyone now forgets that Biden gave pre-emptive pardons to his family and his political allies. In many ways, that sets a worse precedent than what Trump has done.

But instead, Trump acts without nuance and just pardons everyone. Part of what concerns me about Trump is that he reacts often without thinking through the ramifications of what he is doing. That may get us into big trouble with foreign policies are attempts to conduct domestic affairs. I hope Trump has a successful presidency as we do not need a failed presidency. But actions like the way he pardoned the J6ers make me fearful that this seems unlikely to be the case.

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