Sen. Joe Manchin’s lengthy career in public service, which began with a seat in West Virginia’s state legislature 42 years ago this week, has very nearly reached the end. The independent senator didn’t run for re-election this year, and in a month’s time, he’ll leave Capitol Hill.

But before he goes, Manchin has one more bad idea to pitch. The Hill reported:

The West Virginian isn’t the only one thinking along these lines: A week before Manchin made the on-camera comments, The Washington Post published a related piece from the American Enterprise Institute’s Marc Thiessen and Danielle Pletka making the case for such a pardon. (This is a subject the pair apparently takes quite seriously: In June 2023, Thiessen and Pletka wrote a separate Washington Post opinion piece that also called on the incumbent Democratic president to pardon his Republican predecessor/successor.)

Those who make this argument tend to rely on predictable claims: Biden could pardon Trump in the interest of magnanimous healing, advancing the cause of bipartisan comity. Such a move would, proponents suggest, promote post-election unity, and help the country advance past a period of rancor and division.

Biden, in other words, could and should play the role of Gerald Ford, who pardoned Richard Nixon after he resigned in disgrace following the Watergate scandal.

Does the pitch have merit? No, it does not.

Right off the bat, it’s worth emphasizing that Biden has already vowed not to do this. In May 2020, during his campaign, the Delaware Democrat participated in a virtual town hall-style event on BLN and fielded a question from a concerned voter who asked whether Biden would pledge not to pardon Trump if elected.

“Absolutely, yes,” the then-candidate replied. “I commit.”

Three years later, as GOP presidential candidates talked up the idea of pardoning Trump if they were elected, reporters asked Biden about his stance on the issue. The president literally laughed at the questionsuggesting he hadn’t changed his mind.

What’s more, it’s not a secret that the Republican president-elect doesn’t exactly need a pardon: The Justice Department has a long-standing policy that says a sitting president can’t be prosecuted, which is why special counsel Jack Smith and his team have grudgingly agreed to wrap up their compelling, backed-by-voluminous-evidence criminal cases against Trump.

There’s also the relevance of partisan asymmetry: As Biden faces calls to pardon Trump to advance the cause of bipartisan healing, Trump is choosing right-wing radicals for key administration posts, making plans to retaliate against his perceived foes, and issuing Thanksgiving declarations condemning “Radical Left Lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our Country.”

There is a national political leader who should probably hear more about the virtues of bipartisan unity, but it’s not Biden.

As my BLN colleague Hayes Brown recently summarized“In this construction, the unity and healing that the country needs are due to the actions of both sides of the aisle — but the only solution is forgiveness from one side. The trouble is there is no such thing as a unilateral reconciliation; it is a dialogue by its very nature. It’s true that Biden offering a pardon for Trump could be framed as outreach to the president-elect’s followers. But what, then, could be expected from this show of good faith? Are there reciprocal steps that would bring the MAGA movement away from the edge and toward a more united country?”

But even if we put all of this aside, the most important element of this debate is the importance of accountability: It’s not in the nation’s interests to let an accused felon get away with dangerous and unprecedented alleged crimes simply because it might make assorted partisans feel better. On the contrary, it would signal to future presidents that they, too, should expect to be pardoned for serious felonies, creating an unrestrained, accountability-free dynamic.

I don’t doubt that Biden will continue to hear additional advice along these lines in the coming days and weeks. For everyone’s benefit, here’s hoping the outgoing incumbent ignores the suggestions.

Steve Benen

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

President-elect Donald Trump won the election outright after spending months preparing his followers to deem any loss the subject of fraud. With that win, though, the groundwork he laid didn’t simply vanish into the ether. What we’re now seeing is the MAGA movement twist and contort itself to try to make this new reality fit into its established worldview.

Trump voters themselves have proved remarkably malleable in this way. Prior to the election, a full 87% of Trump voters contacted in a survey by Politico and Morning Consult agreed that voter fraud was going to be a serious issue that could determine the race’s outcome. You may be shocked to learn that number plummeted during a survey conducted after the results were in, with only 24% thinking now that fraud could have determined the winner (or did).

Trump voters themselves have proved remarkably malleable in this way.

You’ll note, though, that number isn’t “zero,” as some people are still readily clinging to the specter of voter fraud and rewriting history in the process. A major conspiracy theory that circulated on the right after Election Day was that Trump’s victory vindicated their claims of fraud in 2020. Seeing Vice President Kamala Harris lose with fewer votes than Trump had earned four years ago became warped evidence that the previous race was rigged. (The difference in final vote count is better explained by how long California takes to tally its ballots and a wave of onetime voters opting to stay home this year.)

It’s in this space that conservative election deniers are operating, working to bolster their own priorities now that one of their major motivators lies dormant. “The election denial movement has been evolving and shapeshifting in an effort to stay relevant,” Lizzie Ulmer, a senior vice president at States United Actionrecently told Reuters. And while less overtly coordinated than the “Stop the Steal” effort that materialized after Trump’s 2020 loss, many of the goals and members remain the same.

Among them are the enablers and charlatans who are ready to sweep the less comfortable parts of their previous narratives under the rug. Conservative historian slash MAGA windbag Dinesh D’Souza was one of the loudest voices alleging voter fraud in 2020. Over the weekend, he posted an apology letter to his website stemming from his documentary “2000 Mules.” Endorsed by Trump and many of his acolytes, the film falsely claimed that a web of Democratic operatives dumped thousands of fraudulent ballots for Joe Biden in drop boxes around the country and that this was enough to “steal” the election from Trump.

In the letter, D’Souza specifically apologized to one person, Mark Andrews, who was labeled a ballot harvester (one of the supposed “mules”) and filed a defamation lawsuit in response. The film’s distributor, Salem Media, issued a similar retraction earlier this year. But it’s worth noting D’Souza mostly throws the group that provided the incorrect data “2000 Mules” analysis under the bus. He also doesn’t fully repentwriting that “the underlying premise of the film holds true” while offering a modicum of remorse for any harm caused to Andrews.

A number of Republicans are shifting tactics on mostly nonexistent voter fraud while retaining their overarching goals. After Trump’s loss in 2020, many GOP-controlled state legislatures hurried to pass stricter election laws on the pretense of blocking further cheating by Democrats. It would have been easy for them to pat themselves on the back and hang up a “Mission Accomplished” banner now that Trump’s headed back to the White House.

Instead, Republicans are doubling down to try to lock in their gains against future electoral losses, with even stricter laws being considered in Georgia and Arizona. Congressional Republicans will also likely resurrect the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Actwhich would force states to require documentary proof of citizenship when people register to vote. It’s a hurdle that would make registration harder for many voters in the name of solving the nonissue of noncitizens voting.

The thing about MAGA is that it doesn’t have to provide a coherent set of facts to uphold its ideology.

It’s been evident for years that voter fraud claims are often a self-serving pretext for conservative activists fighting increased access to the ballot box. That’s especially evident based on which groups have been targeted to have their ballots rejected and which cities have been accused of supporting mass fraud. (Hint: It is usually Democrats and, specifically, minorities who bear the brunt of these claims even as plenty of Republicans have been prosecuted for election crimes.)

The thing about MAGA is that it doesn’t have to provide a coherent set of facts to uphold its ideology. At its core is the presumption that Trump should be victorious and deserves the power that he amasses and distributes. Anything beyond that is plasticine ready to be sculpted for whoever is hoping to benefit, much the same way that many voters projected their hopes onto Trump — despite not liking a lot of the things he’s promised to do.

With such a simple framework, at heart, there’s little that can’t be folded into the narrative. When confronted with something that might shake that faith, the easiest thing to do is simply take a proverbial eraser to the past and fill in the blanks with whatever feels right in the moment.

Should the need arise in the next election, it will be all too simple to revive the same false claims as if they had never left. It leads to a world where elections are both entirely safe when you win and immediately suspect when you lose. But that kind of cognitive dissonance hurts only if you’re willing to accept that one of those things might be wrong.

Hayes Brown

Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for BLN Daily, where he helps frame the news of the day for readers. He was previously at BuzzFeed News and holds a degree in international relations from Michigan State University.