Remember when Democrats tried to capitalize on the narrative that they were the guardians of democracy*. They thought they could make the January 6 riot into an effective political attack against Republicans. As time has passed, it’s the Democrats who have become our most significant threat by having biased courts remove people from ballots whom they view as anathema. That’s what the 14th Amendment clowns are trying to do, claiming Donald Trump is ineligible since he fomented an armed rebellion against the United States on January 6. Trump hasn’t been charged with insurrection. He’s also never been convicted; you don’t get found guilty of crimes by default in America.
The courts have tossed similar attempts and legal actions to remove Trump from the ballot, but Colorado decided to take this arguably unconstitutional electoral ploy for a spin. We have our first case of legitimate election meddling for 2024. It’s going to blow up in their faces. California is now trying to see if they can also boot Trump from the ballot. Law professor Jonathan Turley nailed what this all means: Colorado’s decision is anti-democratic, and now states will be thrust into a tit-for-tat game on ballot access (via RealClearPolitics):
JONATHAN TURLEY: Well, it puts this on a rocket docket for the Supreme Court. They have to get involved first of all because there's not much time to make a final decision and also have to get involved because this is dead wrong. I think they are wrong on the law. I just published a piece in Georgetown on this theory.
I think it's fundamentally flawed. Both in terms of the language of the Constitution and the history. What is striking Kayleigh about the opinion is there was a series of barriers, a couple which you just discussed, in applying this provision to bar Trump.
They had to adopt the most sweeping interpretation on every single issue in order to get where they wanted to go. The only part of the opinion that is not sweeping and broad is when they get to the First Amendment and free speech, then they adopt a narrow interpretation. They suggest thatTrump doesn't have free speech protections.
In order to establish he was engaged in an insurrection, they go back to speeches in 2016, and they basically daisy-chain these speeches to say, look he's been at this for a long time. I think the factual and legal basis of this opinion is really so porous that the Supreme Court will make fast work of it.
[…]
TURLEY: Yeah, I hope so. You know this country needs some healing. And what the Colorado Supreme Court did is they basically took a blow at democracy in the name of democracy as you mentioned. We never needed the democratic process more. We need voters to be able to make a decision. Because at some point we have to come back together. Yeah, there were four justices here they finally found a majority to accept this dangerous theory. But there were three Democrats on the other side that refused to sign off. And some of those judges in other states rejected this theory, they are also Democrats. And they didn't do it because they have an affinity for Donald Trump, they did because they have an affinity for the Constitution. I'm hoping that will see that same profile of courage on the U.S. Supreme Court because we need to speak as one voice right now. To say what the Colorado Supreme Court did is wrong. This is not what we're about.
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Turley repeated these warnings on Brian Kilmeade’s show on Wednesday (via Fox News):
It does bother me quite deeply. This is exceptionally dangerous. I mean, it is an anti-democratic opinion, and it could set us on a course that would be incredibly destabilizing for our system. Our system is not perfect, but the one thing that it can recommend itself for is that it's been stable. It survived crises that reduced other countries to a fine pumice. And so we have a system that is built to last. This is introducing a new element. This is introducing the ability of states to effectively block the leading candidate for the presidency by barring them from ballots, and it will result in a tit-for-tat. And this is something that is quite familiar in other countries. This is the way things are in places like Iran, where they have ballot cleansing, where you have people in government tell you who's just not appropriate for you to vote for. And we're looking down that road. Quite fortunately, we have a Supreme Court that I think will make fast work of this. I think that they're just dead wrong on the history, on the language, on the interpretation of the 14th Amendment.
Who gets on the ballot now divides red states and blue states. When Democrats can’t win or fear losing, they just set the whole institution on fire, don’t they?
*We’re a republic.
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