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- cross-posted to:
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The 14th Amendment to the Constitution bans anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the U.S. from holding office.
A Florida lawyer is suing Donald Trump in an attempt to disqualify his current run for president. Lawrence A. Caplan’s Thursday lawsuit claims that the ex-president’s involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot would make him ineligible to run again, thanks to the Constitution’s 14th Amendment—a Civil War-era addition aimed at preventing those who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the U.S. from holding office. “Now given that the facts seem to be crystal clear that Trump was involved to some extent in the insurrection that took place on January 6th, the sole remaining question is whether American jurists who swear an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution upon their entry to the bench, will choose to follow the letter of the Constitution in this case,” the lawsuit says, also citing Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. Legal experts say it’s an uphill battle to argue in court, since the amendment has hardly been exercised in modern history. “Realistically, it’s not a Hail Mary, but it’s just tossing the ball up and hoping it lands in the right place,” Charles Zelden, a professor of history and legal studies at Nova Southeastern University, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
archive link to South Florida Sun Sentinel article: https://archive.ph/1BntD
I never saw this amount of energy to disqualify someone of a presidential election. (What is in this case good) It shows issues in the state itself and how the laws are made. It’s already systemic.
Well, Trump only stands accused of 91 felonies, it’s not like he attempted a coup d’état or som… Oh, wait…
It’s not wagner-style at least
I’ve never seen this amount of energy to run in the presidential election from an unqualified con-man. And I don’t disagree with you on this showing issues in the state itself, but I suspect we may have different ideas on what those issues are.
Unfortunately our system was not designed in the anticipation of someone like Trump together with the complete siloing of information ecosystems made possible by modern technology.
What we’re seeing is new in kind because both Trump and our information ecosystems are new in kind.
The founders also lived in a much more honor-based society wherein dueling was still very much a thing. Someone like Trump, a notorious liar and loud-mouthed braggart would have almost certainly been run through with a small-sword or shot while dueling. If he declined to accept a challenge to a duel, he would have been ostracized from polite society and effectively cut off from public office.
In other words, they expected that things like honor and decorum and the risk of being killed in a duel would provide for consequences not enumerated in the Constitution.
And they were right for over 200 years, then along came Trump and it turned out that such “customs and norms” were not enough.
We now see our old and very decrepit system --that was deliberately designed to be almost impossible to update – struggling with that fact.