Donald Trump is anxious to get retribution against everyone who ever crossed him. There are things he can do as the Donald– trolling on social media, calling for primary challenges, filing suit– but starting on January 20 he will have a pet Department of Justice to help him get his revenge. He hasn’t been shy about naming his “enemies.” Now people are talking about preemptive pardons as something President Joe Biden could do to protect people in advance. My knee jerks pretty hard against the idea. Indulge me, gentle reader, while I defend my reflex. Most of our reflexes do have some sort of survival value. Right off the bat, the whole concept gives me a headache: being pardoned for something you haven’t been charged with yet. In a normal pardon, the President names the deed, the case number, the court, announces a pardon and we all know exactly what happened. How do you word a pardon for a crime that has not been charged yet? Do you describe a certain behavior, or type of behavior, and say So-and-So may never be prosecuted for thus-and-such? If thus-and-such includes the commission of any actual crimes, we are really headed down a dark road. If it doesn’t, what’s with the pardon? I guess the idea is that people who have angered Trump can expect to be prosecuted for something, for anything, even if they commit no crime. That does seem likely, but until this month I believe the understanding was that since the courts are not totally corrupt, frivolous prosecutions will not prosper. Advocating preemptive pardons signals that we’re all done with that kind of happy talk, that we understand that the courts are dirty and can’t be trusted; that we live in what used to be called a banana republic, with kangaroo courts. Are we sure we want to go on record, as it were, with that belief? I don’t know, for certain, to what extent that’s the reality. The Supreme Court does seem to be pulling pretty hard for Trump, but that’s not where cases originate. It is true that the Trumper DOJ can game its own system and try to get cases in front of friendly judges. Even so, are we quite sure that trial judges in the federal courts will agree with Trump that, for instance, everybody on the committee that investigated his involvement with the 1/6/21 attack on the capitol should be jailed? I’m not saying it’s impossible. Anything is possible. But it feels to me like if we go for the preemptive pardon solution, we will really have crossed a line. We will have joined the other side, frankly, by incorporating into our worldview the precept that the courts are not to be trusted. That seems like a big pullback from any commitment to democracy and the-rule-of-law. Democrats are often accused of bringing a knife to a gunfight, but I don’t think the metaphor is apt. MAGA Republicans lie routinely, and it seems to work for them; does that mean Democrats should also start spouting fantasies?  I don’t think that would be a winning game plan. It turns out that the Dems are the party of the college-educated; maybe that has something to do with it. I don’t think Democrat pols can make any hay out of some equivalent of “global warming is a Chinese hoax.” It’s just not going to fly with our crowd. Republicans have gerrymandering down to a big-data science; does that mean Democrats are fools not to  make Jackson Pollock paintings out of every district they control? I don’t think so. No, it isn’t fair. But two wrongs don’t make a healthy democracy. Trump wants the courts to be his pawns; we don’t want them to be anybody’s pawns. I don’t think you can run on that basic distinction while taking extraordinary, unprecedented, and possibly illegal or unconstitutional measures because you’ve decided that the courts at large are in the tank for Trump. For Democrats to be the rule-of-law party, we have to let the judges rule. If and when they make rulings that are heinously lawless, we need to call them out. If we get in the business of preempting them, it’ll look like we’re down in the mud with the Trumpers– and we sort of will be. If Biden were to go for it with the preemptive pardons, I kind of doubt that the Supreme Court would let them stand. They have been very expansive in their interpretation of presidential powers, but– so far– only those that Trump needs to stay out of jail. Trump hasn’t tried the preemptive pardon thing, and the idea really is kind of screwy; I don’t think the justices would allow it for Biden. If they did, just imagine what Trump would do with it! Eric Kuhn lives in Middletown.