🤔 So Trump claims he hasn't been an "Officer of the United States", who would be amenable to the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment's Section 3, potentially disqualifying him from running for & holding public (presidential) office.
He's freaking wrong!
And he should know damn better. As he's himself officially & publicly been insisting on being treated like an "officer" in court.
Just like now-AG Garland certainly remembers his own time on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which wrote: "President Trump removed the suit to federal court under the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1)." in K&D LLC v. Trump Old Post Office LLC and Donald J. Trump.
@ArenaCops
Trump, besides getting convicted, is going to be ruled to be disqualified to again hold public office because of violating his oath and insurrecting.
It's time to focus on getting voter turnout even though he won't be on the ballot because Trump is not the problem, Trumpism is our biggest threat!
@GreenFire One precondition to make overwhelming voter turnout happen is to successfully challenge "traditional" methods of systematic electoral fraud like brazenly legislated voter suppression, gerrymandering, disenfranchisement, in the courts.
Like what @marcelias & many others are excellently & thankfully very busy with.
What's been "legislated" doesn't naturally mean it's legal and/or constitutional at every level.
We all know, that today's "GOP" aims at denying as many voters as possible their fundamental right & opportunity to vote — which is completely unacceptable for every true democrat.
@ArenaCops@marcelias
Certainly, but we need to make it clear that to reform our democracy first we need for more Americans to vote for Democrats because it's obvious that Republicans will block every effort to protect voting rights.
I don't like that we have no choice except the lesser evil in our two-party political landscape, but that's just plain reality. After securing our democracy in 2025 then we can start reforming to make multiple parties possible in the USA.
@TruthSandwich@ArenaCops@marcelias
Yes, probably true on a level. I rail against it because of how many people say they hate it so I think that having a party for the far-left, left, centrists, right, and far-right would give pretty much everyone a party they could support and this would make certain that the Speaker of the House has support outside of his/her political party.
The short version is that a two-party system isn't the problem; the alternatives are better in some ways, worse in others, but none solve the problems that matter.
There are problems to solve, but they can be handled within the current system.
@GreenFire@TruthSandwich@marcelias Isn't the fundamental issue rather, that the existing "two-party system" is a system of one party supporting the Rule of Law, the Constitution, the people indiscriminately as government's sovereign, & the Rule of the People aka democracy — and another ("grand ole") "party" hostile to everything Abraham Lincoln ever stood for, including his adamant refusal to ever be either slave or master, which was his understanding of democracy?
Isn't the real issue rather, that one of the parties is an anti-constitutional, anti-democratic & anti-Union (=>Federal Republic) entity, that kicked out every one of its members, who formerly supported the United States & associated laws, norms, rules & values?
And that such entities actually don't belong into U.S. Congress?
⬆️ >> having a party for the far-left, left, centrists, right, and far-right would give pretty much everyone a party they could support and this would make certain that the Speaker of the House has support outside of his/her political party
Such a system exists in other countries like UK & India.
Both Parliamentary & Presidential systems have flaws
Problem we're facing is not the system but MEDIA's complicity in boosting FarRight lies & disinfo
>> We have all of these factions, but they're not considered parties because the coalitions are formed in the primaries, not after the general.
But none of that matter because media gives totally lop-sided coverage to "news" by suppressing truth and boosting lies + disinfo.
Electoral College makes it worse because all the media and FarRight have to do is focus on sparsely populated areas & scarcely educated people to lie to
Right, the electoral college is an outright flaw in our democratic system and it can be corrected without an amendment, but there are political reasons why this won't happen.
@TruthSandwich@rameshgupta@ArenaCops@GreenFire@marcelias Is it, though? Elections run by the federal government have an obvious, singular point of failure. Popular vote compacts would be unstable without constitutional amendment because any signatory could unilaterally pull out at any moment.
The alternative to an electoral college is for states to run elections but for every vote to count equally. You know, democracy.
The compact is a legally binding document, hence enforceable.
Moreover, once enough states join, the remainder no longer matter. In other words, if we get sufficiently above the 270 requirement then there's no motivation to try to violate it.
"The alternative to an electoral college is for states to run elections but for every vote to count equally."
But how to coordinate agreement upon the vote totals in a way that does not amount to just handing elections over to the federal government?
Before I go any further, I want to say that I agree with you 100% that one person should get one vote, regardless of where they live, for presidential elections. That would be more "democratic" than what we have now.
But it is important to realize that USA was not the first democracy, and most failed. USA has the record for longest running constitutional democracy by far. And part of what makes the system durable is that we do accept restrictions of democracy on some level. You can't vote for a 34 year old because founders hated the idea of "favorite son" presidents. You can't engage in insurrection and still be eligible for office, because the Civil War was awful. Etc.
The counterpoint is that, because it's so old, all the other ones got to learn from our mistakes and could avoid repeating them.
The electoral college, in its initial form, was a huge mistake. The current version is still a mistake. The cap on the House is a mistake. The misrepresentation of the Senate was an intentional mistake, as was the infamous 3/5ths compromise. Lots of mistakes.
the senate is important when you understand the two most important principles of the constitution might be said to be separation of powers, and federalism. having half of the legislature, with certain distinct duties, with equal representation for the states makes sense when you consider that each state has its own constitution, which was ratified similarly to the federal one in each state, each with its own unique properties and a wide scope of freedom to set the context of state law.
i would say in reply that the electoral college is the only reason Trump v Anderson is even at SCOTUS right now. having 50 separate election systems is simply better (more resilient) than 1. it's way harder to take over. so no, it is the furthest thing from a mistake.
The problem with the Senate is that states aren't people. A state-centered assembly is necessarily undemocratic.
We have a similar but lesser problem with the House, because of the math used.
Removing the electoral college has nothing to do with whether states run elections, and there are plenty of other countries that seem to do just fine even with the federal government running all federal elections.
The solution to Trumpism is to take a page from post-Nazi Germany, which has learned a lesson about the perils of too-pure democracy and gone for a defensive democracy, one that allows it to block popular but unconstitutional parties.
@TruthSandwich@8124@rameshgupta @ArenaCops@marcelias
Germany doesn't have our First Amendment protections so we can't treat toxic political parties the same as they do just like with our constitutional rights being different than Brazil's so we couldn't respond to the insurrection the same way they were able to.
tl;dr a guy named John B. Floyd led an insurrection remarkably similar to January 6th, designed to thwart the vote certification on February 13th, 1861.
that insurrection was quelled, and the Capitol was not breached, though there was no less organization and effort.
in other words, no, it is NOT the case that a fatal flaw of our constitution is that we cannot quell insurrection because of "rights."
still, read the brief because the similarities show just how applicable 14th amendment section 3 really is to January 6th.
But, I wasn't saying that we can't deal with the insurrection. It's the aftermath that we can't do the same types of things as can Germany and Brazil because of our constitutional differences.
Related to that, I happen to think that a case can be made that section 3 of the 14th can be used to restrict 1st amendment rights for oath breaking insurrectionists btw.
@GreenFire@TruthSandwich@rameshgupta@ArenaCops@marcelias it probably can (because later amendments can modify earlier ones) but it's probably unnecessary in Trump's case. it was a combination of active participation, including calling Senators on the phone and asking them to "send it back to the states" or whatever and asking Mike Pence to violate his oath, and then telling everyone about it publicly, etc, and passive reluctance to call National Guard or (what actually dispersed the crowd) to tell everyone to go home, even though he has a duty to quell insurrection. so you can almost ignore the speech altogether and he still engaged in it.
Related to insurrection, I'm going to throw in some news.
Did y'all catch the C-Span broadcast announcement by the sedition caucus that they're introducing a resolution to declare that "Trump is not an insurrectionist"?
Anyways lies about BLM protests, no weapons on J6, and of course that DOJ hasn't tried anyone for insurrection.
@TruthSandwich@8124@rameshgupta@ArenaCops@marcelias
Ulysses Grant, a great American, who unluckily made some poor cabinet choices, was prescient on that subject that you just stated: "Modern fascism is entirely post-truth".
@GreenFire@TruthSandwich@8124@rameshgupta@marcelias Today Germany, thanks to U.S. & allied forces' WWII intervention & victory seems to be better protected against demagogues & fascists than America, rebuilding on the Weimar Constitution, which was said to be the most liberal democratic constitution at its time, except for allowing an anti-democratic president to take office.
Germany's Constitution & Freedom of Expression today:
"Article 5
[Freedom of expression, arts and sciences]
(1) Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.
(2) These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons and in the right to personal honour.
(3) Arts and sciences, research and teaching shall be free. The freedom of teaching shall not release any person from allegiance to the constitution."
@TruthSandwich@rameshgupta@ArenaCops@GreenFire@marcelias no, we do not need to take democracy lessons or inspiration from Germany. our system allows greater rights, but the amount of effort and coordination to do a successful version of January 6th is difficult to imagine, and the second you're on public record doing so (as someone who took an oath to the constitution), you're out unless and until congress gives you amnesty. so our system offers both greater freedom and greater resilience to bad actors. it's a very targeted disqualification.
@TruthSandwich@rameshgupta@ArenaCops@GreenFire@marcelias i had to think about this one, i see what you're saying. when i say "out" i mean constitutionally disqualified. SCOTUS tells us about it later (unless they make a mistake which is totally possible).
@TruthSandwich@rameshgupta@ArenaCops@GreenFire@marcelias while i don't share this sentiment, i do understand it, and i feel that we have the luxury of in some sense being above requiring visceral reactions to deal with it, because of what the reconstruction amendment ratifiers did for us, what they took from their experience and gave to us.
What luxury? The courts are not stopping him on the basis of the 14th amendment. The only states that seem at all willing to do so are the ones he can't win.
That may not be how they rule, but I think it is a mistake to assume otherwise publicly since that gives them some credibility for choosing to make such an unconstitutional ruling.
@TruthSandwich@8124@rameshgupta @ArenaCops@marcelias
Also, since so many justices put party over country, I think they'll recognize that the sooner they get him off the ballot the better for the party it will be.
@TruthSandwich@8124@rameshgupta@ArenaCops@marcelias
Trump has not won an election since 2016 and his endorsed candidates have done poorly so I just don't understand the trust that so many people are putting in the polls that have been proven to be pushing a narrative rather than providing insight into our electorate so many times recently, but I'm willing to admit that I have no idea how an election might turn out?
To some extent, these numbers don't matter. The R's are going to cheat as much as they can, and if he still loses, they're going to throw another coup. Count on it.
@TruthSandwich@8124@rameshgupta@ArenaCops@marcelias
There may very well be violence related to a SCOTUS ruling that oath breaking insurrectionists can not again hold public office too. It's sad, but since Republicans are unwilling to stand on the side of the rule-of-law unavoidable.
@TruthSandwich@GreenFire@rameshgupta@ArenaCops@marcelias Dobbs and Moore vs Harper are two recent, strongly originalist decisions that benefitted GOP and DNC, respectively. Originalism means that after ratification, you take the plain meaning of the words as understood at the time (using text history and structure analysis) and apply them to circumstances before the court. I personally believe that this is the best hope to continue the Constitution’s position as supreme law of the land, but it is not the only approach to constitutional law (another major one is “living constitutionalism,” for example).
There are surprising and non intuitive results from this. Free speech rights can be granted to future, currently nonexistent communication methods. There is an entire “unwritten” constitution based on what the states, the “laboratories of democracy,” choose to do for their citizens. It is kind of amazing to learn about.
I don't believe that they're originalists. They're partisans, typically hard-right Catholic, who use interpretations selectively to arrive at their politically-desired conclusions. You can't trap them into being self-consistent against their own interests.
@TruthSandwich@GreenFire@rameshgupta@ArenaCops@marcelias If they were naked partisans shirking their oaths as you claim, don’t you think they would have also decided Moore vs Harper in favor of the GOP so that North Carolina could continue to gerrymander unimpeded?
Dobbs happened because Roe was a mistake in the first place. Nothing in the written or unwritten constitution supports a right to abortion access. The whole-cloth invention of this right allowed both parties to avoid legislating a difficult issue and allowed both parties to stake out extreme and unrealistic ideological positions, driving polarization. I say this as someone who supports women’s rights and thinks the GOP is worse overall.
@GreenFire@TruthSandwich@rameshgupta@ArenaCops@marcelias This is important to get right. I do not always agree with Alito, but check this quote: Alito wrote, "abortion couldn't be constitutionally protected. Until the latter part of the 20th century, such a right was entirely unknown in American law. Indeed, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, three quarters of the States made abortion a crime at all stages of pregnancy.
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