Trump’s Arpaio Pardon Kept Boomeranging

Edition · August 27, 2017

Trump’s Arpaio Pardon Kept Boomeranging

On a quiet Sunday after the pardon, Republicans, legal critics, and even some law-and-order allies kept hammering Trump for rewarding contempt of court and racial profiling.

The biggest Trump-world screwup on August 27, 2017 was not a fresh action so much as the continuing detonation from the Joe Arpaio pardon Trump signed two nights earlier. By Sunday, the White House was still eating the political consequences, with Republicans and legal critics calling the move a jaw-dropper and a hostile signal about the rule of law. The day also underscored how the administration’s North Korea messaging and the broader Russia cloud kept Trump in a posture of self-inflicted crisis management.

Closing take

The pattern was familiar even then: Trump made a maximalist move, defenders tried to rebrand it as strength, and the rest of the political system read it as reckless favoritism. On August 27, 2017, the Arpaio pardon was still the cleanest symbol of that habit—legal contempt wrapped in culture-war applause, then handed to the public as if the blowback were somebody else’s problem.

Ranked by how bad the fuckup was

5 stars means maximum fallout. 1 star means a smaller self-own.

Story

Trump’s Arpaio pardon keeps drawing fire from his own party

Pardon backlash Confidence 5/5

★★★★☆Fuckup rating 4/5 Serious fuckup

A day after Trump pardoned former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the backlash was still building and it was no longer coming only from Democrats. Republicans who usually bend themselves into pretzels for Trump were openly calling the move out of bounds, and legal critics said the pardon sent the worst possible message about contempt of court and racial profiling. The political problem for Trump was not just the pardon itself but the fact that the cleanup job was getting worse, not better, with every defense he offered.

Open story + comments