(Note. I'm sure my readers are well aware that since the attack on Israel on October7, virtually all my posts have been about that and the increasing antisemitism. The atrocities of October 7, followed by the increasing Jew hatred, have really gotten to me in a way that few stories have. Obviously 9/11 is another example. Let's pray for no more 9/11's or 10/7's.)
The Colorado Supreme Court decided that Donald Trump should not be on their state's primary ballot because he is guilty of insurrection, as defined in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. This post will not go into a detailed legal analysis of that Amendment. But the case was brought by a group of never Trumpers against the Colorado Secretary of State, alleging that the Secretary must not allow Trump to be on the ballot because of insurrection.
The trial court found that Trump was guilty of insurrection, but that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment did not apply to the office of President. Therefore, he could be on the ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court disagreed, by a 4 to 3 vote. The Majority: "President Trump incited and encouraged the use of violence and lawless action to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power." And this: "President Trump's speech on January 6 was not protected by the First Amendment."
I admit to not having read this lengthy decision. However, I am very curious to know exactly what words in the speech were deemed by the Court to not be protected speech; what words were deemed to create an imminent threat of violence or lawless action. I also thought it was interesting that the Court found Trump guilty of insurrection without him being a party to the case. I guess I should not be surprised, as the second House impeachment vote on Trump was conducted with no Judiciary Committee hearings first. No evidence was presented prior to that vote.
So I decided to ask another attorney, very leftwing, exactly how the decision would play out. After all, other states have similar cases pending. Do we now have a situation where each of the 50 states gets to decide who can be on the ballot? Obviously, there would not be uniformity among all 50 states. What if Trump were to win a sufficient number of electoral votes where he was on the ballot. Would he only be the president over those states? Would those states where Trump was disqualified from the ballot have a different president?
Back to that leftwing attorney. Having no answer for the possible chaos created by the Colorado decision, he simply said the US Supreme Court will decide. Then, as often happens, he reverted to Trump is bad, and therefore should not be on the ballot. Explaining how that would work with 50 states was of no apparent concern to him.
Is this how the Court is protecting our democracy? Trump has never been convicted of "insurrection." Trump was not involved in the Colorado case. Four unelected judges decided to remove from the ballot the main opponent to the sitting President, and not let the voting public decide. And, again, thinking forward, might we end up with a country having one president for some of the states, and another president for the rest of the states? Is this what the Democrats call protecting our democracy? Because none of it looks the least bit democratic to me.
The Court Majority: "We do not reach these conclusions lightly. We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions before us." I don't think so. The office of the President of the United States is the one and only office that the entire country votes on. (The VP is essentially a tag along.) So I would ask the Court just how mindful they were of creating different qualifications for being on the ballot, qualifications that surely will not be required in many of the other states.
Let's think back to the 2016 election. There were dire predictions about what would happen if Trump won. The most serious was that Trump would start a nuclear war. None of the awful predictions came about. And Trump won. So we had the Russian collusion hoax. That didn't succeed in getting Trump out of office. We had the first impeachment over a telephone call with Ukraine. That didn't work. We had the second impeachment. None of these actions taken by the Democrats succeeded in removing Trump from office. In 4 years in office Trump started no wars. No one lost any rights.
Biden won in 2020, but looks to be easily beatable in 2024. So now we have 4 different politically motivated prosecutions. But they don't seem to be working either, as Trump's poll numbers keep going up. So here is the next idea - keep Trump off the ballot. I honestly do not know how it could be any clearer - the Democrats do not believe in our democracy. Or in any democracy.
(Afterword. I have my own issues with Trump. The silly name calling. The unnecessary commenting on everything. Costing the Republicans the 2 Georgia Senate seats. Having a meal with antisemites like Nick Fuentes and Kanye West. And personally calling state and local officials about the 2020 election results. But don't tell me the Colorado Court cared about democracy.)
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