Jim Clyburn Says Biden Should Pardon Trump, Further Proving Democrats Believe in Nothing

South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn is one of the main reasons Joe Biden became president. He and Barack Obama reportedly worked behind the scenes prior to the 2020 South Carolina primary to consolidate support behind Biden, and Clyburn’s political capital built up over decades since he was first elected to Congress in 1992 paid off. Clyburn is a central part of the Democratic Party who has proven that they are primarily a social club for gerontocrats who like losing, and yesterday Clyburn went on MSNBC to maintain his party’s immensely strong brand of being a bunch of weak-kneed ninnies who don’t believe in anything other than maintaining their level of personal power.

MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart asked Clyburn if Biden should pardon Trump, and Clyburn said that “yes I do think so, and I think he should pardon all of those people who have been accused and who have been targeted so we can clean the slate. We can have an air of possibilities for the future. If we keep digging at things in the past, I’m not too sure the country will not lose its way. President Trump has been indicted and convicted on state crimes. Also please remember the United States Supreme Court has given him immunity, and so I’m asking people who question my thought on this to explain to me how he would be any more insulated by this pardon than he seems to already be by the United States Supreme Court with his immunity.”

I’ll take the Congressman up on this offer: your job is to fight, not preemptively surrender to your political opponents and establish a bipartisan agreement that the president is allowed to do crimes. Sure, Trump is insulated by the Supreme Court, but how does the Democratic Party agreeing that Trump is above the law make this situation better? All you’re doing is lending whatever minute shreds of credibility you have left to Trump, and if Clyburn thinks that Trump is going to do anything other than continue to steamroll a bunch of losers he completely owns, then he’s more hopeless than any person can possibly comprehend.

This is a bizarre take that seems to combine pure doomerism with the Democrats’ knee-jerk reaction to always try to establish bipartisan comity, producing one of the most incoherent arguments I have ever heard a Democratic elected official make. Capehart asked the obvious question of why even bother pardoning Trump if we accept that he is already above the law, and Clyburn said “Joe Biden will be demonstrating what he’s already demonstrated to me: that he loves this country more than anything else other than maybe his family. He wants to see this country going forward. He doesn’t want to see us keep digging into the past and moving forward, so I think this is an opportunity for him to demonstrate that kind of concern for the future of the country.”

So let me get this straight: we shouldn’t keep digging into the past, except for when we’re talking about Trump’s crimes and how he should be absolved for them, because somehow agreeing with the Supreme Court that the president is not subject to laws will help protect this country going forward?

Honestly, Clyburn’s logic looks a lot more at home in the “Jesse what the fuck are you talking about” meme.

Clyburn further proved how detached from reality he is later in the segment when Capehart asked if Biden had planned “more clemency being granted to average citizens caught up in the criminal justice system,” and after saying yes he did expect Biden to pardon non-violent offenders, Clyburn talked about how “I think that a lot of former Congresspeople have been accused of things that were non-violent, and so if you were going to focus on non-violent offenders, that would include Congresspeople.” Capehart asking about “average citizens” and Clyburn trying to toss Congresspeople into it is such a great example of the delusion at the base of the Democratic Party. The median net worth of a Congressperson is about a million dollars, and one of the leaders of the Democratic Party thinks that they should be thrown into consideration with “average citizens.” I can’t imagine why so much of America thinks the Democrats are a bunch of out of touch elitists!

This party is hopeless, man. They don’t believe in anything other than protecting the same people who have been in power for the vast majority of my life, and the inherent incoherence of the Democratic Party is on full display in the wake of Trump’s victory.  Pardoning Donald Trump is explicitly looking into the past while also establishing that his kind of conduct is acceptable in the future, and there is no more naïve belief a human can have than thinking that doing something to help Trump means that he will return the favor. If Clyburn is still confused about this dynamic eight years into this mess, he should ask Rudy Giuliani how sacrificing your own dignity for Trump works out. There is no way out of this political wilderness for the Democrats so long as out of touch gerontocrats like Jim Clyburn continue to hold power and sway in a party that’s proven themselves to be less competent than Donald Trump.