While Republicans have done little to bridge the distance between themselves and the president on a range of issues, the president’s rhetoric and actions have not lived up to his promise. When President Joe Biden took office, he promised to be bipartisan. Politics aside, there is a more important reason for a pardon. With the stroke of a pen, Biden can help change the narrative and recommit the nation to a spirit of bipartisan cooperation. Conversely, the continued partisan rancor among Democrats including Biden will fuel Trump’s bid for the presidency ushering in a new cycle of hyper-partisanship worse than during Trump’s presidency. A pardon would deprive him of the air he needs to breathe. He and his supporters rely on the narrative that a conspiracy exists to destroy him and his base. Indeed, Biden’s act of good will would disarm and weaken Trump as he prepares to run for re-election in 2024. Pardoning Trump would be best for the Democrats politically. Even outraged partisans such as Senator Ted Kennedy, later asserted that “time has a way of clarifying past events, and now we see that President Ford was right.” Ford’s pardon of Nixon can guide us through today’s political turbulence as criminal charges against former President Donald Trump have been filed in a Manhattan Court.

History, however, has a way of lifting the haze from the present, and many today believe that Ford’s pardon of Nixon was the right thing to do. Many Americans who already had a deep-seated hatred for Nixon were outraged by the pardon, particularly after the new president had suggested just weeks earlier that the public would not stand for absolving Nixon of what likely amounted to high crimes and misdemeanors. The former President had resigned in disgrace in August of that year rather than face an impeachment inquiry. 8, 1974, President Gerald Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon for the Watergate Scandal.

With malice towards one and all