For most of American history, presidential pardons were supposed to carry a certain gravity.
Not casual. Not strategic. Not performative.
The power existed because the justice system, like every human institution, is imperfect. The idea was that somewhere inside all the laws, prosecutions, sentences, and procedures, there still needed to be room for mercy. Room for second chances. Room for recognizing that sometimes strict punishment no longer serves justice very well.
At least that was the principle behind it.
But for many Americans today, presidential clemency no longer feels closely connected to ordinary people at all.
And honestly, it’s not difficult to understand why that feeling has grown.
Most people experience the justice system as something heavy, expensive, and deeply procedural. If an ordinary person gets buried under legal debt, probation requirements, criminal records, custody battles, licensing issues, or years of court-related consequences, there usually isn’t a powerful network helping them navigate it. Most people don’t have elite attorneys making calls behind the scenes. They don’t have media allies, political relationships, or influential people advocating on their behalf.
For a lot of Americans, interacting with large systems feels more like sitting on hold, filling out paperwork, missing work for appointments, and hoping one mistake doesn’t follow them for years.
Then they look at modern presidential pardons and notice something uncomfortable:
the names receiving extraordinary mercy often seem to come from the same circles power already moves through.
Not always. But often enough that people notice the pattern.
And maybe that’s the real heart of this conversation—not whether every pardon is wrong, but why clemency increasingly feels emotionally distant from ordinary Americans.
Because this pattern doesn’t belong to just one administration or one political party.
That repetition matters.
Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon
Long before today’s political climate, Americans were already wrestling with the tension between accountability, mercy, and political power.
When Ford pardoned Nixon after Watergate, supporters argued the country needed stability and closure after a deeply damaging national scandal. Critics saw something else entirely: a political system protecting one of its own from facing the full consequences ordinary people would likely endure.
Even decades later, Americans still debate whether that pardon helped preserve trust in institutions or quietly weakened it.
And maybe that uncertainty itself is important.
Because clemency has always existed in a strange emotional space where legality and public trust don’t always land in the same place.
George H. W. Bush
That tension continued into the early 1990s.
Bush pardoned several officials connected to the Iran-Contra investigation, including former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. To supporters, the pardons corrected what they viewed as politically prolonged prosecutions tied to a complicated Cold War-era scandal.
To critics, the decisions looked more like institutional protection inside the upper levels of government.
Again, perception matters here even when people disagree on the specifics.
Because over time, repeated controversies slowly shape how ordinary Americans emotionally interpret fairness itself.
Bill Clinton
For many Americans, the Clinton years probably marked the moment presidential pardons started feeling openly entangled with modern political influence.
The pardon of financier Marc Rich became one of the most controversial clemency decisions in recent history. Rich had fled the country while facing charges tied to tax evasion and illegal oil trading, while his ex-wife had significant donor ties within Democratic circles.
Then there was Susan McDougal, whose connection to the Whitewater investigation kept questions of loyalty, political relationships, and selective mercy circulating for years afterward.
Whether people believed those pardons were justified or not, the emotional impression lingered:
powerful proximity increasingly seemed connected to extraordinary forgiveness.
And once people start seeing that pattern, it becomes difficult to completely unsee it.
George W. Bush
Bush generally approached pardons more cautiously than some presidents before and after him, but controversy still followed several major clemency decisions.
Scooter Libby
Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff received a commutation after convictions tied to the Valerie Plame leak investigation.
Isaac Toussie
Bush initially approved a pardon for Toussie, whose family had Republican donor ties, before revoking it after backlash surrounding the political connections became public.
What stands out now isn’t simply the pardon itself.
It’s the fact that revoking a politically connected pardon over ethical concerns once felt necessary enough to happen publicly at all.
Today, many Americans seem almost emotionally exhausted by stories involving political influence and insider access.
Not shocked.
Just tired.
Barack Obama
Obama’s clemency record is more complicated than political narratives often allow.
On one hand, his administration commuted sentences for many nonviolent drug offenders serving disproportionately harsh punishments. Those decisions genuinely affected ordinary Americans and reflected broader concerns about fairness in sentencing.
But even during an administration associated with criminal justice reform, controversy still surfaced around certain high-profile insider cases.
Chelsea Manning
Obama commuted Manning’s sentence after years of intense national debate surrounding military leaks, government secrecy, and whistleblowing.
James Cartwright
The retired Marine general received a pardon after lying to investigators during a leak investigation, renewing familiar questions about how accountability functions differently around highly placed officials.
Again, the larger emotional issue isn’t necessarily whether mercy itself was wrong.
It’s that ordinary Americans increasingly notice which cases seem most visible to mercy in the first place.
Donald Trump
Trump’s use of presidential clemency likely intensified public attention around the pardon power more openly and visibly than Americans had seen in quite some time.
The process often felt less institutional and more directly connected to loyalty, media presence, public alliances, and political identity.
Michael Flynn
Roger Stone
Paul Manafort
All received clemency after becoming central figures tied to investigations surrounding Trump and his campaign.
Rod Blagojevich
The former Democratic governor of Illinois also received clemency after years of publicly defending Trump in media appearances.
Whether people supported these decisions or opposed them, the broader emotional perception became difficult to avoid:
visibility, relationships, and political usefulness increasingly appeared connected to extraordinary mercy.
Joe Biden
Biden’s presidency has generally approached clemency with a quieter tone, focusing heavily on marijuana-related offenses and broader sentence reforms.
But even here, controversy hasn’t disappeared completely.
Questions surrounding politically connected clemency decisions still surface because, by this point, many Americans no longer evaluate these moments individually.
They absorb them collectively.
And that may be the deeper issue underneath all of this.
Over decades, repeated examples across multiple administrations slowly shape emotional perception. People begin feeling like there are two versions of accountability operating side-by-side:
one for ordinary people,
and another for people operating closer to influence, visibility, and power.
Fair or unfair, that perception changes how people relate to institutions.
Especially now, when trust already feels fragile in so many parts of American life.
Faith in media feels weaker than it once did.
Politics feels more emotionally hostile.
Public trust in institutions often feels thin and conditional.
People increasingly assume hidden motives before assuming good faith.
So when presidential mercy repeatedly appears most visible around insiders, donors, celebrities, political operatives, or connected figures, it reinforces a broader emotional suspicion many Americans already carry:
that systems may technically belong to everyone while still feeling more navigable for some than others.
And maybe that’s why pardon controversies continue landing so heavily emotionally.
Not because Americans oppose mercy.
Not because every pardon is illegitimate.
And not because people expect presidents to behave perfectly.
But because people still want to believe fairness, compassion, and second chances meaningfully extend beyond status, influence, and proximity to power.
A society’s trust in justice depends partly on whether mercy feels reserved mostly for the connected—or whether ordinary people still believe it belongs to them too.
TL:DR
The Liberty Formula — 99 > 47 + 1 — is a symbolic reminder that ordinary Americans likely have more in common with each other than with the systems and incentives constantly competing for their outrage, loyalty, and attention. Tyler Mokoi reflects on rising distrust, political exhaustion, growing division, and the dangerous normalization of civic fatalism in America. The article argues that while disagreement is inevitable, losing the ability to function as a shared society is far more dangerous — and that reclaiming unity around shared pressures may be the first step toward rebuilding trust.