David Youngberg writes
"You are the first person I've encountered "in the wild" (so to speak) that has defended these pardons.
Really? You must have a very tight filter bubble.
To be clear, I don’t think the J6 protests should have happened. They accomplished nothing, except make Republicans look like deranged lunatics. (See photo above.) And their hapless antics gave endless grist for the Democratic media mill, in their efforts to paint Trump and the protesters as violent revolutionaries.
IMO, Trump should have conceded once the Supreme Court (a conservative court with three of his Trump's own appointees) refused to hear his election tampering claims.
That said, the J6 protesters were harshly over-sentenced as political retaliation for daring to sully the secular temple of the progressives, in the same way that Ross Ulbricht, a first time offender, was over-sentenced (two life terms plus 40 years) in order to send a message.
The so-called "seditionists"--consisting of many soldiers and law enforcement members-- had almost no guns and caused no deaths to law enforcement. The only death at the "insurrection" was an un-armed female protester.
Yet many of the protesters received extremely harsh sentences. For example, Enrique Tarrio received 22 years, Stewart Rhodes 18 years, and others received sentences ranging from 14 to 18 years.
In my view, the BLM riots were far more harmful in intent and effect. Consisting mostly of white Democrats , the BLM "protesters" looted and burned cities across the US in 2020, resulting in 19 deaths, and 1+ billion in property damage. And they were cheered on at the time by many Democratic leaders. They then disappeared once Biden was elected.
If white Republicans had protested in a similar manner, with similar enthusiastic support from Republican leaders, the BLM protests would've been treated as a month's long Krystallnacht.
Yet despite causing far more damage and loss of life than the J6 protesters, the BLM protesters received comparatively light sentences.
Only 300 were federally charged, Of the 70 of those convicted, the average sentence was 2.25 years. Only 10 received prison terms of five years or more.
In my view, a "mostly peaceful" protest of Congress--the people actually responsible for the protester's grievances--is much more ethical than burning down a bunch of middle class black-owned businesses.
And their sentences should’ve reflected that. By pardoning them / commuting their sentences, Trump corrected a harsh injustice.