Krugman calls it fascism.

Mind you he seems to think it requires some justification, while I think it’s obvious, but then he’s writing in the Times and I’m not.

Let’s call things by their proper names here. Arpaio is, of course, a white supremacist. But he’s more than that. There’s a word for political regimes that round up members of minority groups and send them to concentration camps, while rejecting the rule of law: What Arpaio brought to Maricopa, and what the president of the United States has just endorsed, was fascism, American style.

And fascism goes in stages; it’s not the full-blown thing from day one. Trump is getting steadily more horrific. That’s how this goes.

Maybe we’ll … Read the rest

A scholar of political institutions says how Trump’s pardon deviates from other presidential pardons.

It is hard to gauge the political fallout of the president’s decision — announced as it was late on a Friday night during an impending hurricane. Normally, though, as political scientist Jeffrey Crouch’s book on the pardon power makes clear, pardons are granted for two reasons: either to provide mercy or correct a miscarriage of justice, in an individual case; or on more general grounds based on public policy.

Trump’s doesn’t fit the mercy category very well, because of its haste and because of the lack of contrition.

(Further, in considering such petitions, “The extent to which a petitioner has accepted responsibility for his

Adam Liptak in the Times reminds us that there’s nothing we can do about it. Ford’s outrageous pardon of Nixon taught us ancients that long ago.

But in the process the Times included an elaboration that is bleakly funny.

The courts, Congress and the public have few avenues to take action against a president who issues a contentious pardon. Legislation, for instance, is not an option.

“This power of the president is not subject to legislative control,” the Supreme Court said in 1866. “Congress can neither limit the effect of his pardon nor exclude from its exercise any class of offenders. The benign prerogative of mercy reposed in him cannot be fettered by any legislative restrictions.”

“The benign prerogative … Read the rest