Son of Indian immigrants, 37-year old, Ohioan, biotech entrepreneur, hedge-fund partner, and author (Woke, Inc., 2021) Vivek Ramaswamy was the third Republican to announce his candidacy for president (after Donald Trump and Nikki Haley). Whatever makes him think he is qualified to be president (a mystery to me), he certainly knows a winning issue (in MAGA world) when he sees one. “I commit to pardon Trump promptly on January 20, 2025 and to restore the rule of law in our country,” he has already announced, ahead of Nikki Haley, who has since seemingly also jumped on the pardon bandwagon.
I remember the fierce debates after President Richard Nixon's resignation in August 1974 about whether or not he should be indicted or tried - or pardoned. I remember President Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon once month later and the firestorm of reactions it produced. That probably contributed to Ford's narrow defeat in the 1976 election. Since then, the verdict of history has generally supported Ford's decision. Recently, however, the growing obsession with prosecuting Trump has moved the needle back to the historically somewhat less than true and otherwise politically useless mantra that "no one is above the law."
Personally, I thought that Ford did the right thing then, and I still think so now. Not only would prosecuting Nixon have been disastrously divisive, it would have eclipsed all government policy-making for months or more - much as Trump's antics and Trump's legal woes are now eclipsing everything else. President Ford understood that, and I believe he did the right thing.
Notwithstanding the historically somewhat less than true and otherwise politically useless ideological insistence that "no one is above the law," the case for making Trump go away by pre-empting a trial and/or conviction has a certain appeal. I see little or no "upside" (to talk in Succession speak) to a Trump trial or trials - and even less "upside" to either his possible acquittal or conviction (and possible reversal on appeal). MAGA world wants a hero, who is also maybe a martyr. The rest of us, I suspect, at least many of us might really prefer for Trump to go away, to disappear from the coming campaign and from electoral politics for the long term.
(To be clear, Trump's going away would not mean that Trumpism would go away. The Republican party, which used to be just about making rich people richer, is now the institutional political expression of MAGA Trumpism in all its frenzied delirium. Nothing short of overwhelming political electoral defeat might conceivably make Trumpism go away. The other side of that, however, is that prosecuting and convicting and even imprisoning Trump would not make Trumpism go away - and might well even empower it,)
It is possible for two things to be true at the same time. It could be that Trump may prove to be guilty of significant crimes, and it could also be true that prosecuting, convicting, even imprisoning him might do significant, perhaps irreparable damage to or already fragile constitutional system.
Actually, of all the suggestions I have head being thrown around in media speculation, the most promising one that I have heard - not to Trumpism, but to Trump's personal participation in electoral politics - might be an Agnew solution. Spiro T. Agnew was Richard Nixon's corrupt vice president, who resigned in October 1973 as part of a plea bargain, which involved his pleading nolo contendere to several significant charges. Agnew was accused primarily of personal corruption. He was not the existential threat to constitutional government that Trump has proved to be. But the relevant analogy is not the severity of the alleged crimes but the social and political benefits from a mutually agreed upon outcome. In return for escaping a trial and probable prison sentence, Agnew agreed to resign the vice presidency - thus making Nixon's impeachment and removal plausible and the much more palatable President Ford possible. Agnew escaped prison, but in return the country escaped any more Agnew (and ultimately escaped Nixon). It was a deal well worth the price.
Would it not likewise be well worth the price to offer Trump some sort of alternative-to-trial plea bargain in which the government agreed to no prison time or fine in return for some sort of probation with the explicit condition of his immediate and complete withdrawal from electoral politics? Of course, everything we know about Trump suggests that he would never actually agree to anything like that. And there is the further complication of possible state charges which would be hard to negotiate away, given the intense ideological investment in those prosecutions. Frankly, I suspect the intense ideological investment in the "no one is above the law" mantra may make it unlikely that such a plea bargain would ever even be considered on the government side either. Still, wouldn't it be worth the effort?
It is hard to imagine Trump, who is often his own worst enemy, coming to terms with what he has done, making (like Nixon) some modest admission of responsibility, and taking the best deal on offer. Yet even Trump must be a little anxious at the legal jeopardy his actions have put him in. It is at least plausible that the main reason he is running again at this point - even more than revenge for 2020 - is to stop present and future prosecutions and eventually pardon himself. Resigning form public life might be a lot less fun for him than revenge and pardoning himself would be, but even Trump might be persuaded to consider such a more secure outcome by the overwhelming threat that these indictments actually pose.
Trump aside, the country as a whole and our increasingly fragile constitutional system also have a real interest in an outcome which might make it less likely that the prosecution of former presidents become normalized, much as political impeachment has now become normalized - first against Clinton, then against Trump. It is in the interest of the country as a whole and our increasingly fragile constitutional system that, when a Republican wins the White House it will not have become the new normal that his Democratic predecessor be indicted!
Obviously, all this is speculation. For all the reasons above cited, it seems less and less likely that this runaway train can be stopped at some sane point. Perhaps, the primary penalty that "no one is above the law" is imposing is actually on the country as a whole, as we seem to be sentencing ourselves as a nation to continuing this sorry spectacle in the form of a presidential election in which the main issue may be whether Trump will win and so get to pardon himself.
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