Trump, Pardons and the Big Lie

The confluence of the pardons of some of the most violent worse of the worse, with full immunity for the President, opens us up to an unleashing of American Brownshirts. Too dark?

In his inauguration speech and the slew of Executive Orders dumped on his first day like a bad case of diarrhea, the most dangerous and conceivably far-reaching was his pardoning and clemency grants of the January 6 insurrectionists at the Capitol. In that action, he was signaling that one could not only break some laws but do real violence. And that’s fine so long as the violence is on his behalf.¹

The January 6 pardons

No one should have been surprised by Trump’s pardons and commutations for the January 6 convicts, though the sweeping nature, covering those sentenced for the most violent acts and for insurrection apparently caught even his Vice President by surprise. In a Fox News interview, Vance was unequivocal, “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.” Never mind.

Trump, largely immunized from legal accountability by the Supreme Court, could offer sweeping preemptive pardons to anyone in his Administration who breaks Federal law over the next four years. Yes, this is very dark.

The Brownshirts and Oath Keepers

What came to mind immediately was Hitler’s Sturm Abeilung (SA), colloquially known as the Brownshirts. The SA's supposed purpose was to guard Nazi Party meetings, but in actuality, it became the Nazi Party’s army. Its members were mainly lower-middle-class Germans who had lost their jobs due to the country's economic problems. The SA gave them something to be part of and proud of. They engaged in street fights with their political enemies, practiced pseudo-military exercises, and terrorized Germany.

Now, neither the Oath Keepers nor Proud Boys nor similar self-styled militias were created by the Trump Party. However, they are fiercely loyal to Trump, as they see him as aligned with their conspiracy-driven beliefs. As a generalization, the militia movements believe that the United States is collaborating with a one‐world tyrannical conspiracy called the New World Order to strip Americans of their rights—starting with their right to keep and bear arms. Once Americans are defenseless, goes the conspiracy, the New World Order will enslave them.

Immediately after learning about the sweeping pardons, I worried that Trump's essentially immunizing them against prosecution could embolden these militias to repeat actions such as the January 6 storming of the Capitol, so long as their lawbreaking was in support of him. I set to work early last week drafting these concerns for the Pancake. Since then, my concern has been reinforced by a range of analysts along a continuum of the ideological spectrum.

The editorial writers at The Wall Street Journal, who generally seek any angle to support Trump, weighed in with no ambiguity. Under the headline “Trump Pardons the Jan. 6 Cop Beaters. Law and order? Back the blue? What happened to that GOP?” they write:

This is a rotten message from a President about political violence done on his behalf, and it’s a bait and switch. Asked about Jan. 6 pardons in late November, Mr. Trump projected caution. “I’m going to do case-by-case, and if they were nonviolent, I think they’ve been greatly punished,” he said. “We’re going to look at each individual case.”

So much for that. The President’s clemency proclamation commutes prison sentences to time served for 14 named people, including prominent leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who were organized and ready for violence.

Jonathan V. Last, added in The Bulwark

The point of these pardons, clemencies, and commutations is to recreate the street armies on which Trump leaned in his first term.

You may have forgotten, but public violence was one of the hallmarks of the Trump years. Paramilitary organization like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers frequently marched in American cities, engaging in violence and intimidation.

But as the convictions from the January 6 insurrection piled up, many of these groups receded. Trump’s entire 2024 campaign took place under a notable absence of open paramilitary support.

Yesterday, the Proud Boys marched in the nation’s capital for the first time since the insurrection. A few hours later, their leader, Tarrio, was set free.

The message is unambiguous: Trump wants supporters who engage in street violence on the loose. He wants a paramilitary arm for which he has plausible deniability. They are his irregular forces; his Little Green Men.

The militia leaders and rank and file understand full well the implications of what just happened as they paraded out of prison as conquering heroes.

The crackdown [the prosecution of the January 6 attackers] seemed to spell the end of many of the groups involved, including the Proud Boys and self-styled militias such as the Oath Keepers. As their leaders faced prison, the organizations were torn apart by infighting, members went underground, and many local chapters spun off or went silent.

Four years later, they are jubilant—and feeling vindicated. This week, dozens of Proud Boys once again marched through the streets of Washington. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes visited congressional offices on Capitol Hill², and waves of pardoned inmates were released from jail to cheers of “We are back!”

On CNN last Thursday, Edward Jacob Lang, among the newly emancipated, was similarly jubilant:

We stood up against a stolen election. We will be vindicated in the pages of history as patriots and freedom fighters. It is no longer the age where we have to hide in America. We are back, the patriots. We don’t have to crawl in the back corners of Facebook and Instgram being censored. We’ve got X, We’ve got Musk. We’ve got Trump. We’ve got the dream team. We’re back!

In The New York Times, Brendan Ballou, one of the lawyers who prosecuted the rioters, laid out the big picture of the pardons. It was more than just fulfilling a campaign promise.

The effect — and I believe purpose — of these pardons is to encourage vigilantes and militias loyal to the president, but unaccountable to the government. Illiberal democracies and outright dictatorships often rely on such militia groups, whose organization and seriousness can range widely, from the vigilantes who enforce Iran’s hijab dress code to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia that have killed government opponents.

Mr. Trump seems excited about this possibility. When asked Tuesday if groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers had a place in the political conversation, he said, “We’ll have to see,” adding that “these were people that actually love our country.”

There is great value to him in having members of these groups released, doubly loyal to him, and eager to carry out his agenda and silence his critics through violence. Mr. Trump has shown his willingness to use his pardon power, and little stops him from doing so again.

Or, as The Bulwark’s Mona Charen explained it succinctly in a discussion with colleagues last Tuesday evening³,

By releasing the worst of worst, Trump is underlining his intent to use domestic terror for his own purposes. He is saying “If you use violence for me, I will pardon you. You’re untouchable.” He can leach out of the dark places in this country an army of really, really dangerous people can they can do anything.

The Big Lie amidst smaller lies

Donald Trump has perfected the implementation of the Big Lie, the grandest and most consequential of which has been his insistence that he did not lose the 2020 Presidential election. It led to the “alternate” slate of electors scheme and ultimately to the 1500 participants who were identified, prosecuted, sentenced, and now pardoned or commuted.

During this first term, The Washington Post heroically tabulated nearly 31,000 false or misleading claims out of Trump’s mouth, ultimately to little effect on a large portion of the electorate. That works out to 30 per day—including days he was playing golf. Nearly 300 times, Trump falsely claimed, “We also got tax cuts, the largest tax cut, and reform in the history of our country, by far.” Contrary to his boasts, Trump did not achieve a record for appointing the most appeals and district court judges. He was wrong the first time and on 249 subsequent occasions that he'd "totally rebuilt" the U.S. military. Obviously, this barely dents the pile.

The Big Lie theory is often credited to Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Miniter of Propaganda. However, there is no primary reference that has ever confirmed it. What is the Big Lie?

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

Sound familiar? Actually, Hitler wrote about it in Chapter 10 of his autobiographical manifesto Mein Kumpf in 1925. He was attributing these lies to the Jews. Hitler’s understanding of why it works should seem very applicable to the success Trump has had with his multiple Big Lies, in particular his repetition of the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021 insurrection—among others.

[T]hat in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation…. [my italics added]

Trump is no longer just a clown with a flamethrower

There seems to be something maliciously logical about this reasoning that while most of us have told little lies, it would seem audacious to tell a big lie that would appears to be easily disprovable. So, many assume that this must be the truth. “Benjie, are you eating cookies before dinner?” as my mother catches me with one hand in the cookie jar and crumbs on my sweater. Could you imagine insisting, “Oh, no, I was putting a cookie into the cookie jar. And the crumbs are from lunch.”

Maybe a kid couldn’t get away with this. But Trump has succeeded with repeated hand-in-the-cookie jar fabrications. For some believers, his shameful show of confidence in his repeating his lies could be the selling point. Many want to believe him, as it is consistent with their own beliefs. Then there is the repetition. That is compounded by enablers, whether Fox News, social media echo chamber, or most Republican elected officials. And, from the start of his public ascendency in 2015, he instituted a campaign to undercut the veracity of the mainstream media⁴. Thus, the truth is lies to many of our fellow citizens. Finally—and this may be most critical— there is too great a segment of the populace that doesn’t seek out or pay attention to reliable sources of “the truth.”⁵

Personally, I’ve been characterized as Pollyanish for my long-time inclination to accept negatives and yet see the glass as half full. I’m not very bullish these days. Unlike Trump’s first term, this new one has started off far darker, infinitely more strategic, aware of maneuvers to avoid guardrails or ignore them altogether (thank you, Supreme Court, for that immunity ruling).

I’m not describing for you anything you didn’t know. We’re in for a difficult and perhaps seismic remaking into a conceivably illiberal democracy in America that may be difficult to undo. This is a moment where the velociraptor has learned how to open doors⁶.

I’d be grateful if could leave a comment that I’m missing anything positive.

1. There was at least another outrageous pardon last week that got mostly lost in the avalanche. Trump set free Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence as the founder and operator of Silk Road, a dark Web platform that was the world’s largest marketplace for drug dealing. Referring to Ulbricht’s mother, Trump said he made the gesture “in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly.”

2. “A federal judge on Friday barred Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers extremist group who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol riot, from entering Washington, D.C., or the U.S. Capitol without the court's permission.” NPR 1/24/25 [On Jan. 27, the same court rescinded that restriction after the Trump Justice Dept made clear the commutation also cleared any supervised release provisions of the original sentence].

3. At 14:27 of the transcript

4. Only 16 percent of Republicans, the Pew project has found, say they believe what they hear on NPR.

5. Next stop: In Oceania, the Ministry of Truth was responsible for any necessary falsification of historical events. See Orwell, George, 1984.

6. Velociraptors know how to open doors, Jurassic Park, 1993.