I’m not upset that the Supreme Court ruled that the states may not remove Donald Trump from the ballot. I looked into this issue when it first came up and satisfied myself that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment could not be used by individual states to keep a candidate off the ballot. If I were on the Supreme Court, I would have ruled in favor of Trump, too, and for the same reasons expressed in the unanimous opinion.
What I wish is that there were some forcing mechanism to get a federal decision on whether or nor January 6th was an insurrection and if Donald Trump is an insurrectionist. The Supreme Court could theoretically have ruled that Trump is not only ineligible in Colorado and other states that have removed his name from the ballot, but all states. I think that would have been the best outcome for the country, especially if it were an unanimous decision with Clarence Thomas recusing himself due to his wife’s participation in the conspiracy.
Short of that, Congress could pass a joint resolution declaring Trump ineligible under Section 3. That could still happen someday. But without a federal determination of this type, it was not practical to have some states barring him and some states not barring him. At some point, Trump needs to have a due process right to defend himself against charges of insurrection, and so far he has not been formally charged.
Even if Jack Smith had charged him with that particular offense, the trial would not have started. I do think if Trump is found guilty before Election Day on the federal January 6 charges, then Congress should invoke Section 3, but we know that is not going to happen.
In the end, Section 3 worked in the 1860’s because the Union won the fucking war. We haven’t won our war yet. Clearly.
I assumed all along the SC would overturn this. I think it was a real stretch for Colorado but I understand why they made the attempt. The shitty part is that now that the SC has weighed in, the decision will likely just feed the narrative that Trump is being targeted simply because he’s Trump. When you consider low information voters, who are the ones who will carry significant weight in deciding the fate of American democracy in November, they will probably see this just exactly as Trump would hope they do; that he is being singled out by Democrats for completely illegitimate reasons, time after time. I have heard this in a variety of different ways among people I know, and I fear this just serves to bolster that narrative in their minds. Not to mention that the mainstream media is going to frame this as a huge defeat for “Democrats” and, by association, President Biden. They will act like this decision somehow mitigates and cancels out all the arguments surrounding Trump’s efforts to overthrow the election. In a country rife with misinformed people, many sucking from the teat of a relentless fascist propaganda machine, and a media structure that needs Donald Trump legitimized in order to keep their revenue flowing, this decision does not help one fucking bit in our effort to save this country from an unimaginably horrific fate.
Why would Congress have to pass legislation formalizing the process? The Constitution clealry lays out a congressional procedure for waiving the disqualification–why include that part if Congress first has to draft a bill and take a vote to disqualify a candidate before they can then take another vote to say, but you know what? we’ll give you a pass this time. And suddenly states don’t have any say in federal elections? What about all the disparities in access to the polls among all the states? If you want to base it on the lack of a formal criminal charge of insurrection, we can talk about that. But for the ruling as I understand it, it’s a mess of bad logic.