I think labeling that as “idiotic” is short-sighted.
It’s not a matter of “being bipartisan”, in some hippy way (that wasn’t even the case with Obama, he was just trying to find a way to actually get stuff passed - he failed miserably though I agree), but rather preventing terrorism and turmoil which Trump has been promoting, from being a problem for the US for the next 10 years.
If Trump leaves office and then is immediately charged/arrested for all his many, many crimes, he’s going to become a martyr for the Christians and far right, and particularly for QAnon nutcases. America has a serious problem with domestic terrorism already, and Trump in jail or constantly in flashy, high-profile criminal trials (which they would be) is going to rile them up fantastically. And the results are unlikely to be great - he may well get a number of innocent verdicts, which he is definitely going to parlay into calls for revolutionary violence/terrorism (or his supporters will).
Yeah, sure, people like you and me will definitely enjoy see justice being done, to the extent that it is (which I suspect is “way less than we’d like”), but at the cost of giving a massive boost to terrorists, militias, the far-right and conspiracy nuts for decades, which will potentially result in more stuff like the Oklahoma truck bomb of 1995, or worse.
Whereas if Biden pardons him for anything that happened during his term in office, he neuters him.
Suddenly Trump has no real grievances, no valid complaints. QAnon types may well believe Biden is “working with” Trump on some level. Far-right-types have little to rattle on about and Trump becomes this faintly shameful figurehead, like everyone who gets pardoned is. There are no criminal trials to exacerbate the situation. And further, if they want to, Republicans can use it as an excuse for thumbs-upping Biden? Will they? Probably not. But that’s beside the point. The point is to neuter Trump and prevent a decade of domestic terrorism.
And Trump is going to end up buried beneath a ton of embarrassing civil lawsuits that he can’t be pardoned out of anyway. He might also be criminally tried for stuff that happened before he was president, which doesn’t have the same appeal to the far-right and nutjobs, because it’s mostly rape and sexual assault, and that’s grime-y shit no-one wants to be associated with. Further, the Christians don’t like it, because pretty much none of the women are his wife, where they might find it more acceptable.
And leaving him in charge and getting the shit sued out of him, rather than in jail, satisfying as that might be, is much more likely to have knock-on bad effects for his kids, who won’t be able to do the “OMG my dad is a political prisoner!!!” dance, but will instead have to be “OMG my dad is not in debt, he’s a billionaire!” and “OMG my dad is not a rapist!” dance, neither of which is an attractive dance. It once again will become clear that Trump is not a “cool rebel” (yeah I have no idea why anyone believed this but whatever) or a “normal guy”, but rather will appear to be a mega-rich old perv who routinely assaulted women.
So I fucking hate to say it, I genuinely hate it, but pardoning him for anything done during his presidency, no matter how corrupt, may be the smart move here.
Agree re: the SC being unlikely to intervene in the way Trump wants. His cases just aren’t strong enough and aren’t about few enough votes. The margins are too big. He might make ground with recounts, but it’s equally likely he’ll lose it, and there’s no real chance the counting in any state was so far off that it’ll change over. Recounts in the US typically change the numbers by a few hundred votes (I think this is the same in most places in developed world), because the counting systems are boringly well-designed, but Biden’s smallest lead is over ten thousand, and the rest are multiple tens of thousands. The SC already ruled some votes had to be separated off in Penn. for example - Trump’s campaign crowed about this. Turns out it was about 500 votes (presumably split 65/35 Biden/Trump, so not even all against him), when Biden won Penn. by 40000-ish (IIRC). Sooooooo. Yeah. Not looking great for Trump there. Re: Amy Conan O’Brien and abortion, well, it’s only an issue because they only have abortion rights because of a frankly flimsy court ruling (Roe vs. Wade). In a civilized country, it’d be because it’s an actual, clear law. If Roe vs. Wade went, it’d cause temporary and extreme chaos, but there’s no way it wouldn’t ultimately lead to an actual law allowing abortion, because all the old evils would come back in months.