More likely Trump continue to fire prosecutors that try to do their jobs upholding the literal law. No prosecution, no pardon needed.
The check on that is for Congress to impeach and remove a corrupt President from office, but that will be difficult with how many Republicans are complicit.
This news item is just one more previously-unthinkable line crossed in an unambiguous trend towards more-crazy.
___________
> "But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next."
-- They Thought They Were Free: The Germans The Germans, 1933-45* by Milton Meyer, published 1955.
There was no Internet, only official propaganda. Sometimes the truth leaked via the Swedish embassy or railway workers, but it cannot spread far if those who spread it are killed themselves.
But I agree that people all over the world have been docile and compliant since 2020 on all sorts of issues, so the danger is there even if it should be harder today.
So quaint. Now bribes are out in the open and no one even bats an eye. Trump coin, Trump media, never released anything about tax returns, selling merch, etc... It's comical to me that his followers think he's dismantling the deep state grifters, when he is a deep state grifter.
I have to give some credit to Trump and the media around him for being masters at the narrative. Hillary's emails and Hunter on a board of a company requires investigations and congressional involvement, but Trump and his family casually take 100's of millions if not billions in bribes and no one thinks twice.
This is potentially falling of the Soviet Union bad. Not that we will dissolve the union (still hopefully a very low chance) but that the system of government collapses & the various business-mafias squabble to claim what they can in the power vacuum that follows; a loss of national integrity.
Would you rather:
* 'over react' about the end of history, and be wrong (i.e. things turn out fine), or
* 'under react' and end up with a bunch of thugs in charge?
It's possible this is a situation where you're crying "wolf" when there isn't one, but given Trump's erratic mind, and the stated plans of the political right
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
which side to you want to err of?
And with regards to "over reacting" and nothing happening: a lot of folks said Y2K was an over reaction because nothing happened, but nothing happened because people did a much reacting. That nothing burger was a success, not a sign of over reaction.
If they get pre-emptive Presidential pardons, nothing can be done (unless you go with state-level charges).