Last week, Ross Douthat scribbled something about how removing Trump through the 14th Amendment, section 3 is undemocratic. Needless to say, his op-ed piece is stupid. But it does get at a fundamental confusion about how U.S. democracy works (and that’s being generous to Douthat).
While the RETVRN douchebags and other sundry wingnuts are wrong about the whole ‘It’s A rEpUbLiC, nOt A dEmOcRaCy’ thing, the U.S. is a representative democracy: we elect people–democratically–to do the daily job of governing. It’s time for those who represent us–and the judges granted power by our representatives–to do their fucking jobs already. Because the voters already did ours. Trump has lost the popular vote twice, and, despite all of the structural impediments, the Republican ‘Red Wave’ didn’t materialize in 2022. Voters did do their jobs, but, so far, the people we elected have failed in theirs, most importantly in discharging their obligations under the 14th Amendment.
Trump has been impeached for his actions on January 6th–but the Senate failed in its duty by not convicting him. To the extent the executive branch could play a role here, the Department of Justice has moved glacially in its investigations. So, as often is the case, the judiciary is called upon to address (often poorly) the failures of the other two branches to govern. Those failures do not absolve the courts of their duties to enforce the 14th amendment.
So there is no confusion: the Supreme Court judges, as freakish as they might be, are neither aliens from outer space who have imposed themselves upon us through force, nor are they a hereditary aristocracy (even if several of them act like wannabee-aristocrats). The Supreme Court judges are nominated by the democratically elected executive branch and confirmed by the democratically elected legislative branch. Perhaps the courts should have less power, or perhaps judges should be directly elected (a horrible idea, in my opinion), but this is the system we have, and, like other appointed and confirmed officials such as cabinet secretaries in that system, they have an obligation to uphold and protect the Constitution.
The Constitution is not a ‘choose your own adventure book’ where you get to decide which amendments are operative and which ones we ignore. If that were the case, then why couldn’t Obama–or George W. Bush–run for a third term?
The failures to date are not those of the voters, it is of those they elected to do the actual day-to-day job of governing in a representative democracy. It is not “undemocratic” to uphold the Constitution, especially the 14th Amendment which guarantees so many essential post-Civil War freedoms. It is the job of our democratically elected representatives–and those they appoint–to uphold the Constitution.
Time for them to start doing their fucking jobs.
mikethemadbiologist
The refutation is really quite easy. Do we allow a 25yo on the Presidential ballot? What about someone who has already been President for two terms? What about am immigrant? They are all Constitutionally barred from being President.
There’s a fourth question: who controls a political party’s primary ballot? The party or the state? The latter might require a “yes” to the questions above.
A couple further issues are these: don’t be stupid, and do the right thing instead of waiting for someone to do the right thing later. Also the Constitution instructs the state legislatures to give the method of electing Electors. The state may very well limit primary ballots.
The word “latter” should have been “former”.
Amazingly, it is precisely because of the electors that Oregon’s Secretary of State refused to deny Trump’s entry to the primaries. She reasoned that HE wasn’t being elected….instead, electors were being selected and they were simply being given instructions to vote for him. She’s rightfully being sued by at least one advocacy group!
But compare with Cenk Uygur’s presidential bid: Arkansas, New Hampshire and Nevada have all refused to put him on the primary ballot precisely is disqualified from office–he doesn’t meet the Constitution’s natural born citizen requirement. Funny how Constitutional rules only apply to some individuals but not others.
What if this was Little League? A team shows up and cheats every way possible. The umpires are bought and paid for, the scorekeepers add points, the bats are plugged, the ball is messed with, and their fans throw drinks and rocks at the opposing players. But even with the game stacked against them the team that didn’t cheat eked out a win.
Everyone celebrates. The cheating is investigated and it is shown they did cheat. They could be disqualified. But no individual has been convicted or sentenced because the trial is still going on. In the mean time nothing has been done to prevent cheating. The cheaters, of course, privately brag about cheating but publicly accuse their opponents. Time move on and it’s time to play ball.
The same dishonest team with the same dishonest coach show up. They brag about cheating and about having developed new ways to cheat. Do you disqualify or let them play?
Trump and MAGA have shown they will not play by any rules that interfere with their winning. There are now more opportunities to cheat. Already a couple of GOP run legislatures have asserted that they can ignore the vote count and select their own electors for the Electoral College. This is a much more efficient way of cheating. No need to find votes or call around and lean on people not to certify the vote. Bypass voters entirely.
The list of ways to cheat is endless. And this time they have had four more years to get the cheating right, to plan ahead, to coordinate. We, the American citizenry, scraped by in 2020. If the contest was really fair I would say we should hold the vote. It wasn’t fair then and it is even more unfair now. I’m profoundly disinclined to allow them another bite at the apple. Not with Democracy on the line and a non-zero chance we could end up with president-for-life Trump.
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