Democrats already know what the mirror image of that looks like. When Trump called for the jailing of his political opponents, he was justly condemned as promoting a vendetta characteristic of a banana republic. Despite the efforts of Trump’s Justice Department, no basis was found to prosecute his political rivals. Trump tried anyway; Biden can, and perhaps should, be better than that.

American democracy cannot tolerate the prosecution of political opponents.

But the justification for a pardon can also be grounded in a higher purpose. The 73 million Americans who voted to re-elect Trump two weeks ago will be just as angry about a good faith federal investigation of Trump after he has left office as Democrats were angry about Trump’s baseless chant to lock up his former political opponents.

Right now, even after the Trump presidency that Americans believe was divisive, polls suggest that enormous numbers of Americans still believe that we have more in common with one another than what separates us. There is an opportunity to rediscover our common ground with one another — and the way forward does not involve relitigating the last four years in federal criminal court.

Voting corrupt authoritarians out of office feels pretty mother-effing good, as a billion babies that will be churned out across the US precisely nine months from now will attest to. That said, it's not a good idea to get too comfortable after kicking a Mussolini-wannabe to the curb. Just look at Chile, which defeated the dictator Augusto Pinochet via a referendum in 1988 but only managed to get rid of the last remnant of his murderous government ... now. As in, last month. And it was all thanks to a bunch of turnstile-jumping schoolkids and pot-banging old ladies, not the country's politicians.

Nearly 80% of voters chose to take Pinochet's legacy for a helicopter ride and draft a new, more equalitarian constitution. And that's good, but what the hell took so long? Well, what most feel-good movies about Pinochet's defeat don't mention is that, while he wouldn't have minded staying in power for a couple more centuries or so, he very much left under his own terms and remained involved in government matters until 2002. This was like breaking up with your abusive ex but letting him sleep on the couch and decide what to watch on TV for the next 14 years.

How did he pull that off? By rewriting Chile's constitution like a kid who makes up fake Monopoly rules when he's losing. Pinochet and his henchmen knew that the dictatorship would end one day, so they wrote the 1980 constitution to ensure things wouldn't change too much after they were gone, then forced it on the country via a bogus election (in which government agents were allowed to double or triple dip at the voting urns). The constitution permitted Pinochet, someone who stole millions of dollars from the country while killing and torturing thousands of citizens, to remain as Commander in Chief of the Army until 1988 and become senator-for-life after that.

Speaking of elected officials that nobody elected, the constitution also made it so a third of the senate was made up of "designated senators" handpicked by Pinochet's side to make sure the left-wing parties could never get a majority, even after winning every single election until 2005. And the modern right, despite being alllllll about "freedom" and "democracy," loved it.

But the truth is that Trump did far worse in last week’s election than he should have, and that his reelection campaign was a historic failure. Incumbency is a far greater advantage, this year, than it has been made out to be. And during an ongoing crisis, American voters tend to choose the devil they know over the one they don’t. It’s really hard to overstate the incumbent advantage in U.S. politics. In most cases, incumbent presidents not only win reelection, but also substantially increase their popular-vote margin. Twenty-one American presidents have served a second term. Among these, only three were unable to grow their vote share significantly in their second election. Between their first and second elections, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant and Ronald Reagan doubled their popular-vote margins over their opponents. Franklin D. Roosevelt improved his by 80 percent, and Bill Clinton by 50 percent.

Four out of the five biggest landslide elections in the 20th century were won by first-term incumbents: Richard M. Nixon in 1972, Reagan in 1984, Roosevelt in 1936 and Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956. Five of the most decisive electoral college landslides across U.S. history — setting aside George Washington’s, as he had no opponents — also have been won by incumbents: Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Nixon, Reagan and Abraham Lincoln.

The presidential historian Allan Lichtman told NPR that this is because incumbents have “name recognition, national attention, fundraising and campaign bases, control over the instruments of government, successful campaign experience” and the benefit of voters’ “risk aversion.” This can manifest as an aversion to any new risk over substantial risks people are already experiencing. Incumbents can win in recessions. Incumbents can win when lots of Americans are dying. Incumbents win even during periods of exceptionally low American satisfaction with the state of the nation. Some incumbents win reelection handily during periods of national crisis or scandal — think George W. Bush in 2004 against the backdrop of the faltering Iraq War and his top weapons inspector’s admission that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction.

Trump has already trashed so many norms and laws and standards of decency that to confront what he might do now prompts both weariness and terror. Accelerate his family’s personal looting for sure. Hand out favors to contributors and flunkies, of course. Pardon more criminal toadies, racists, his family, maybe even himself. What will he do to punish political allies he feels let him down—to say nothing of the governors who stood up to him or the states that didn’t vote for him? Already he’s pushing people out. The chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was booted Thursday. On Friday evening, Trump fired Bonnie Glick from her post as deputy administrator of the US Agency for International Development, which helps global efforts to fight the pandemic. Why? “She was fired Friday because the White House would rather have its political allies in control of the agency than an establishment Republican with actual expertise and experience,” notes the Washington Post.

Who’s next? Likely contenders are FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspell, even Attorney General Bill Barr (okay, I’m fine with that). And which super stooges might Trump elevate? Maybe Hope Hicks becomes an acting Cabinet official—why not? Richard Grenell takes Haspell’s place—not impossible. But don’t let your imagination stop there. He retains the full powers of the presidency until noon on January 20. Though he never paid any attention to his presidential daily briefings, what’s to stop him from putting the nation’s most valuable national security secrets on a thumb drive and hold them hostage or put them on the open market? What if he orders federal troops into Portland or Philadelphia? He’s done it before. What if the next time he gets pissed at Iran or North Korea, he launches missiles?

We face a very dangerous next two months. Trump’s closest advisors won’t even tell him (or do not believe) that he’s lost; they’re certainly not going to dissuade him from further vandalizing the country. The Republican establishment has prostrated itself to him in exchange for tax cuts and judges and to avoid being on the receiving end of mean tweets, but party leaders view him with contempt, and the feeling is mutual. No help there. His kids are complicit. There’s no indication he takes counsel from his wife, and less indication that any such counsel would be wise.

Even if Joe Biden were tempted to pull a Gerald Ford and pardon Trump in exchange for a normalish transition (which would guarantee a meltdown on the left), Trump faces criminal charges and civil lawsuits in state courts. Some kind of blanket multi-jurisdictional promise was made to Spiro Agnew to get him to go away, but here’s the other thing: Trump does not want to go quietly. It’s not just that he has no sense of patriotism or personal dignity; it’s that his brand—his psyche—is built on bullying and bluster. He’s incapable of acting in the greater interest, and he’s not even able to recognize that going through the motions of such sentiments are in his own interest. (See: his treatment of John McCain and Arizona’s election results.)

That’s our motto. We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary.