The response to the January 6 pardons shows that the president faces no effective constraints from within his party.
The strange new reality after Trump’s pardons
Republicans used to denounce the violent insurrectionists of January 6. Their rhetoric is no longer operative.
After the January 6 attacks, right-wing militias went underground. Now they have permission to come out of hiding.
Just as Watergate was not only about the Watergate break-in, January 6 shouldn’t come to stand only for the events of that date.
The Trump administration can pardon the insurrectionists and delete pages of evidence. But it cannot hide what took place on that day.
With Trump teasing pardons for Capitol rioters, Radio Atlantic shares host Hanna Rosin’s podcast series We Live Here Now, about the 2021 insurrection and its aftermath.
The federal judges who stewarded these cases deserve more respect than that.
January 6, five years later
By granting blanket clemency to the January 6 insurrectionists, the president has unleashed violent, and loyal, paramilitaries.