On Tuesday evening, the Supreme Court of Colorado ruled that former President Donald J. Trump had to be removed from the state ballot, for both the primaries and the general election. They cited Amendment 14, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States, which states, in relevant part, that candidates are ineligible for office if they “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution of the United States. It is unclear whether the provision applies to presidential candidates; it is even more unclear whether such a provision is “self-enforcing,” meaning that any electoral official in any state can simply declare for himself whether a candidate has been an “insurrectionist.”
Nonetheless, the court said it is qualified to determine who is guilty of “insurrection” under the 14th Amendment without any criminal case or impeachment case. And the court says that “the events of January 6 constituted an insurrection and… President Trump engaged in that insurrection.”
On a legal level, this is extraordinarily strained. Section 3 was designed to prohibit those who had served in the Confederacy from holding public office in the United States. The Confederacy, as we know, was an armed rebellion against the United States that ended in the deaths of some 600,000 Americans on both sides. Trump, by contrast, made a series of legal challenges to the election, all of which were denied, and then claimed — on the basis of specious legal reasoning — that the vice president could simply throw out electoral slates that had already been certified. He then called for his supporters to protest at the Capitol building and a riot broke out. This hardly qualifies as an “insurrection,” let alone proving that Trump engaged in one. Trump, let us not forget, has not been charged with insurrection. He was not even convicted in his impeachment trial over Jan. 6.
Yet the Colorado State Supreme Court says it can bar him from electoral eligibility anyway.
This is, to put it mildly, unbelievably dangerous.
It sets up a perverse set of incentives for both political sides.
Trump can and will rightly claim that lawfare has been used to thwart the workings of democracy — that a slate of judges in any state can simply negate the will of the voters, and that President Joe Biden’s own Department of Justice has been attempting to drag him into court before the election in order to stymie his shot at the presidency.
Meanwhile, the Colorado Supreme Court has now set up expectations for Democrats across the country that Trump can be legally barred from the presidency — and when the Supreme Court overturns that Colorado Supreme Court ruling, they will claim that the Supreme Court itself is rigged.
All of which means that 2024 is going to be the most insane and ugly presidential election in American history. And that’s saying a lot, since 1968 and 2020 are both years that existed. Under what circumstances, precisely, would Democrats accept the result of a Trump election? Under what circumstances, precisely, would Republicans accept the result of a Biden election?
The weaponization of the legal system creates an all-consuming fire, burning everything in its path. There is simply no 2024 result likely to result in anything but complete – and perhaps violent — chaos at this point.
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Ben Shapiro, 39, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and co-founder of Daily Wire+. He is a three-time New York Times bestselling author; his latest book is “The Authoritarian Moment: How The Left Weaponized America’s Institutions Against Dissent.” To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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Amendment 14; 3
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
Biden’s current rebellious border insurrection what allows 12,000 enemy troops into the United States to raid our granaries and social programs to the $Trillions, and the tens of billions in bribe money Joe paid the Iranians to fund their now America attacking surrogates, who has sworn to destroy us,,, qualifies him to be removed from every ballot in every state. As far as Trump on Jan 6th, no cannons fired at Ft. Sumpter, no armed confederate army attacking the Capitol from Virginia!!! Just hordes of armed BLM Protesters waiting in the wings for their orders from Pelosi, Biden, and a tax slaving Democrat Party that reflects the Same Democrat party that caused the Civil war in the 1860s, crying for Jeff Davis to be hung out on a sour apple tree.
“The Confederacy, as we know, was an armed rebellion against the United States”
Ben Shapiro is an idiot of epic proportions. The Confederacy wasn’t an “armed rebellion”! This guy knows nothing about history.
The Confederate States peacefully and legally seceded from a voluntary union and it was Lincoln who waged an illegal war against a now new, foreign country known as “The Confederate States”. The South left the union because they didn’t recognize the rigged election of Lincoln and also didn’t want to be forced into a war with Spain so the union could annex Cuba, which was known as the “Ostend Manifesto”.
This guy needs to have a long talk with Tom DiLorenzo about what really happened instead of leaning on his liberal education and neo-con upbringing.
He’s right about one thing: This incident WILL lead to violence, and ironically, a real insurrection.
There’s very few instances i’ve had to disagree with Ben on, THIS IS ONE>
Did you know that there were some discussions about New York City seceding from the Union in 1860. According to the New-York Historical Society, on January 7, 1861, New York City Mayor Fernando Wood suggested that the city follow suit after South Carolina became the first state to secede in December 1860. The money sent to New York for export from enslaved workers cotton industry was motivating factor. Lincoln probably wanted to keep Union united and clean up ways Union economic engine was running. Cotton sent to New York to be exported to entire world. More to this civil war thing than what some want us to believe.