If Democrats Were Smart…

… they would be clamoring to impeach the president over the Hunter Biden pardon

U.S. President Joe Biden walks to the Rose Garden to deliver remarks at the White House on November 26, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

I apologize. The headline and sub-headline above are a little unfair. I run the risk of antagonizing a large batch of my subscribers with that kind of language. But I got your attention, didn’t I?

Anyway, the point I want to make with this rather unusual and feistier than normal post isn’t that Democrats are stupid not to be responding the way I think they should to the news that Joe Biden has issued a sweeping pardon of his son Hunter. My point is that they have other faults that are blinding them to the need to break out of the party’s well-worn grooves. I’ve restrained myself from pushing this point during the post-election period until now. But I have to tell you, the Hunter Biden pardon has broken me. And the honest truth is that I really wish I saw signs it was breaking more members of the party.

A Little Anger, Please

As I’ve been arguing for the better part of a year, the Democratic Party combines paralyzing risk aversion (We can’t do that! We’ll scare the voters!) with unjustified overconfidence (We’re the good guys, and the good guys always win in the end). It’s that combination of psychological tendencies that got us this rolling series of strategically foolish and mutually contradictory positions since last spring:

• In February: Shut up about Joe Biden being too old! He’s sharper than you are, wiseass! Meanwhile, the voters are just being stupid in complaining about the economy, which is great by the way. (Just look at these charts!) Ditching Biden now/ever would be catastrophic! It would have to be Kamala, and she’s a far worse option.

• In late June: After that debate performance, of course Biden needs to go! But there’s no way we can have any kind of competitive contest over who should be the replacement nominee. That would be a disaster! So it has to Kamala, despite her faults.

• In late July: Kamala’s amaaaaazing! The joy is infectious! And picking Tim “They’re Weird” Walz for her running mate? A genius move! He’ll be a secret weapon to defeat Trump’s toxic masculinity.

• In mid-November: You mean we lost the election and the popular vote to Trump? Fuck the voters then. I hope they get what’s coming to them. We’ll be here when they come crawling back to us to clean up the mess, as they always do.

Okay, sure—this, too, is a little unfair. I was writing in anger. But you know what I’d like to see more of? Democrats speaking and writing in anger about where they’ve ended up at the conclusion of the one-term Biden administration.