If you’re not sure you can beat him, then disqualify him. Indeed, the latest gambit by the left in their addled state of Trump derangement is to weaponize the so-called insurrection clause in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment to wipe Donald Trump off the ballot. And it comes as polls show Trump paradoxically gaining strength every time his enemies figure out another novel legal theory by which they can arrest him for criminal conduct – and now leading in a majority of recent polls. A group of citizens in Colorado, backed by an ethics watchdog group, are the latest to erupt with a frenzied initiative asserting that Trump must not be allowed to appear on the 2024 presidential ballot in the Rocky Mountain State – and several other states ruled by Democrats appear set to make the same case. A trip all the way up the ladder to the US Supreme Court appears inevitable.
While we are keenly aware of the lengths to which Trump’s enemies will go to take him down, this latest initiative to employ the Constitution in service of canceling the most popular Republican in the country is most confusing. That’s because it comes after we’ve been hearing for months on end about a very different grand plan cooked up by Democrats for vanquishing their mortal enemy. They once believed that arresting him – four times to date, each time applying the law as never before – in order to stoke a conservative backlash would lead to his nomination – and then, viewing him as the most vulnerable Republican, they would defeat him in November.
To Trump or Not to Trump
So, which is it? Do the Dems still want to all but force Republicans to back the 45th president? Or do they want him off the ballot?
Well, it now appears they are not sure, and are in a state of panic because their grand plan is not just failing – it has produced the opposite of the desired effect: the growing perception that the transparently political nature of the 91 charges leveled against Trump is overkill, crying wolf, and most importantly, is making them look more corrupt than the man they are constantly arresting. And for those who stubbornly argue that the four indictments are from varying jurisdictions, and therefore not coordinated by the White House, the timing of the federal trial on January 6-related charges should remove any last shred of doubt. The Obama-appointed judge has set the trial to begin the day before Super Tuesday, the pinnacle of the presidential primary season. Apparently, the left no longer even cares how nakedly political their use of banana republic-style police power to silence and disqualify their political enemy appears to the populace.
Donald Trump (Photo by James Devaney/GC Images)
But now they evidently don’t want to take the chance of letting the voters decide since their confidence in vanquishing Trump has diminished amidst the rubble of one poll after another showing Trump even or ahead of their feeble incumbent. They were certain Trump would be trailing badly among general election voters by this point. But he is not.
Does it matter that Trump would be disqualified because of his role in a supposed insurrection when he has not even been charged with insurrection? The answer is no, according to those “scholars” desperate to prove that Trump should not be permitted access to the ballot because, as the amendment states, no one may seek federal office who has either “engaged in insurrection or rebellion … or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” In other words, they are claiming Trump does not actually have to be convicted of, or even indicted for, insurrection in order to be punished for it. Their claim is that he provided aid and comfort to the rioters, even though he exhorted his faithful to “[march] over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” To the untrained eye, this sounds sort of like getting a ticket for speeding when you were driving under the speed limit.
Applying section 3 of the 14th Amendment to Trump, like so many other leftist schemes, corrupts its purpose and history. It was ratified after the Civil War, in 1868, to provide a legal remedy in the event of continued uprisings in the former confederacy, and has been all but defunct since the Reconstruction era – until Trump came along. Nevertheless, rest assured that the swelled ranks of anti-Trump legal scholars will be pedal to the metal in arguing the constitutional case to disqualify Trump – and for good reason. Given that the left’s fixation on condemning and indicting Trump has backfired in such a big way, they may be left with few other options for short-circuiting their worst nightmare: the 45th president becoming the 47th.
