Latest / FROM THE INSIDE OUT by BETH ARNOLD
#47 CRIMINALITY AS CREDENTIAL
Trump’s pardons are a map of what he values
I started with Trump’s pardon of former Republican congressman Stephen Buyer, but the more I looked, the clearer the larger pattern became. These pardons are not random. They are not mercy. They are not justice. They are a map of Donald Trump’s values.
Trump has used the pardon power to reward loyalists, political allies, financial criminals, January 6 defendants, culture-war figures, and people whose crimes fit neatly inside his own moral universe: money, loyalty, silence, propaganda, violence, and usefulness.
In Trump’s America, criminality is not…
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