He broke an explicit campaign promise not to pardon his son. He exonerated his son not only from the kind of wrongdoing that probably would not have been pursued against another malefactor, but the kind of wrongdoing that absolutely should be. He has accused his own justice department of trying to “break” his son in order to “break” him, thereby dignifying his successor’s routine trafficking in conspiracy theories anchored in self-pity. He not only said in so many words that there is nothing wrong with trying to peddle political influence for profit (since so long as you fail, you haven’t broken the law), but by issuing a blanket pardon for any crimes that may have been committed during an 11-year period has effectively demanded that the public simply trust that there are no consequential crimes yet to be discovered. And he could take this action only because he himself was immunized from prosecution by the Supreme Court, a decision decried by liberals for putting the president above the law and thereby vastly increasing the likelihood that the presidency’s power will be abused for personal interest. The first beneficiaries of Trump v. U.S. are Hunter and Joe Biden.
Also, Ross Douthat, putting it as plainly as possible:
What did y’all think “amoral familism” meant? Vibes, papers, essays … ?