One of the brilliant things Donald Trump and the MAGA world generally have pulled off is normalising a world where outrages on their side are so numerous that they are almost impossible to list or get one’s mind around. Meantime, the occasional minor ones on the other side of the aisle are puffed up to fill a news cycle, or two or three, or 10 or 20.

Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter this week is a case in point. As I write this, there are five stories about the issue on The New York Times website’s homepage, and four on the front page of Politico.

President Joe Biden embraces his son Hunter Biden at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.Credit: NYT

More in a moment on the pardon. But before we get to it, let’s remember that, just less than four years ago, the Trump administration was in its waning days. One might think those left working in the White House might have been soberly reflecting on the reverberations of January 6. But no: Donald Trump was getting his list of pardons ready and, by many reputable accounts, a feeding frenzy arose around him as the grimy remnants of his term in office cashed in on the process. Trump ultimately dropped scores of pardons as his........

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