The Colorado Department of State warned that it would be “a matter for the Courts” if the state’s Republican party withdrew from or ignored the results of the primary.
The Colorado Department of State warned that it would be “a matter for the Courts” if the state’s Republican party withdrew from or ignored the results of the primary.
Honestly I’m of two minds about it.
One, faith by the electorate in the process of elections is part of democracy. I genuinely don’t think it’s reasonable to tell 60 million Trump supporters that those of them that live in Colorado aren’t allowed to vote for the man. I get that the letter of the law is that he tried to invade the congress and kill the vice president to keep himself in power, which is a crime that in any civilized society would keep him off the ballot not to mention behind bars, but this is actually a rare instance where I think “but they’ll get really mad about it” is a viable reason not to do it. Or, at least do it on a national level, since the idea of an election where certain candidates are or aren’t on the ballot differently in different states is obviously undemocratic and will clearly lead to retaliation in kind by the GOP which will step us a little further towards a civil war.
Two, fuck it. They’re already rogue. They tried to kill the vice president. We’re in a fight for the survival of democracy in this country and it’s nice to see the boundaries being pushed by the people who aren’t the ones kicking out the supporting timbers.
Fuck 'em. The only thing they don’t get mad about is fascism winning. A majority of Republicans already believe elections in this country are illegitimate simply because their orange messiah didn’t win. We’re past the point of sitting down and having a reasonable conversation.
There’s a book called How Democracies Die that goes into quite a lot of detail as to how this situation has played out historically.
Basically, it’s a nasty situation. The reality of life is, everyone can just get up and do whatever they want to do. A judge can decide he’s a Trump supporter and stop prosecuting Trump supporters if they attack people in the streets. A general can decide he will or won’t deploy the military against the citizens when the leader orders him to. The military rank and file can obey or not. A lot of “the rules” that constrain people’s behavior and keep democracy running are totally made up, and there’s a bad, bad problem that happens when people start to abandon the rules.
So, what do you do when the fascists are abandoning the rules? There’s an obvious answer: fight back in kind. Add some seats to the supreme court. Kick Trump supporters out of congress. Have the secretary of state decide that a state where polling locations in Democratic areas didn’t get enough ballots, should have gone to the Democrats. If the Republican secretaries of state have been doing the same on Trump’s side, and the alternative is losing the election, then that’s a pretty sensible option.
Except, it’s not. As a general rule, if the non-fascist side starts abandoning the rules in kind in order to fight back against the fascist side that is abandoning the rules, then the slippery slope down towards open war accelerates by quite a lot. Generally, the two things that can save a democracy that finds itself in this situation are:
It’s a little counterintuitive. But that’s what the book says. Now, is kicking Trump off the ballot “breaking the rules”? I honestly don’t know. Technically it’s 100% legal. But a lot of things are technically legal, including Republican state legislatures turning in vote totals that don’t match the will of the voters. Like I say, I’m of two minds about it, but the bottom line is it’s not quite as simple as “fuck 'em I don’t care.” Because “fuck 'em I don’t care” energy is what starts civil wars.
I’d argue commentary like yours is a greater hindrance to a reasonable conversation than the republicans are. You’re capable of being rational but are willingly refusing to.
And queue the Dems throwing down votes at a someone paying them a compliment and ironically proving my point…
You’re not getting downvotes because people are irrational or salty, you goon. You’re getting downvotes because you’re saying dumb shit.
“you’re not being polite enough to the mob of wannabe fascists” isn’t a reasonable position anymore.
It never was. It’s just Liberals LOVE their civility politics. If they couldn’t clutch pearls, they might realize the world has enough problems without the imagined ones like naughty words…
Every time I see/hear someone say this, I am reminded of the phrase, “You cannot reason someone out of a position they were not reasoned into”. It also doesn’t help that the republicans in power have shown us, over and over, that they are not acting/arguing in good faith.
Having a reasonable conversation and trying to remain rational when faced with those two factors is very difficult, at best, and puts you at a significant disadvantage, at worst.
That being said, I don’t really have any better ideas other than to stick to my ideals and try to be rational/reasonable.
My comment had almost exactly nothing to do with republicans… I implied they aren’t capable of being reasonable/rational, but the point was really about Dems, and their lack of being reasonable/rational not because they can’t, but because they just decide not to.
…and I got the downvotes… Didn’t sound like a Democrat, so I must be a repub, because that’s just how Dems work now.
You seem uncharacteristically reasonable though, so I replied to you just to say that :)
I think a lot of dems have decided it’s time to play the same game the republicans are playing. A sort of “if they won’t play by the rules, why should we?” mentality.
I don’t know if I like or agree with that, but I can certainly understand why someone would make that choice. That’s what I was trying to get at with my previous comment.
Thing is, Dems are playing by the rules. It just feels different because it is different. There’s an actual realization we have to fight for this thing and not just fret and tut-tut.
I’m so tired of wrung hands being a badge of honor among Democrats. Show me something more than a different flavor of thoughts and prayers. Tell me what you did (congress person).
No, the other guy was right. I down voted you for saying dumb shit.
I am being rational. I’m just not playing their dumbass civility politics games anymore.
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Okay, Neville Chamberlain.
Yes, calling fascists fascists is a much greater hindrance than Republicans saying things like trans people are corrupting the youth or that rich people deserve the most breaks.
I get that you’re saying that it doesn’t feel fair to you, but that’s not how the law works. We might want the law to meet our sense of fair play, but there’s a ton of questions about balancing interests and precedent and so on.
The constitution itself places limitations on who can run for president. Is it fair that Arnold Schwarzenegger can’t run for office even if people want to vote for him? Maybe, but it’s illegal. Of a genius and charismatic 29 year old entrances the country with her brilliant rhetoric and would clear 90% of the popular vote and unite the nation, she also cannot become president. Is that fair to the electorate or our young genius? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s constitutional, and it’s the law.
CO law states that primary candidates must be people eligible for election to the office as judged by the state. This law has already been used to keep someone off the ballot. In a decision decided by Gorsuch himself, it was held that states have the right to make those calls.
In addition, the feds have almost always defaulted to allowing the states to decide how to conduct their elections and have stated that the feds have no constitutional authority to dictate how they conduct elections. This was how Bush v Gore was decided, along with the Boting Rights Act and other cases. Except in the case of violating something like equal protection, the feds stay out of it. Sitting members of the current court decided those cases.
So the Foinding Fathers didn’t think that just anyone should be allowed to run and the people should decide. Case law backs the idea that states can set their own rules. Trump is disqualified in the opinion of Colorado by virtue of having engaged in insurrection, and even the previous ruling, which would allow Trump on the ballot, did not challenge that finding. They just said that the law doesn’t apply to the president of the United States. It was a bad, bad ruling.
The sc can’t even grant a stay without overruling CO election law, which I believe says the ballots must be set by Jan 5, and the self-imposed stay already runs through the 4th.
Love your answer! But I’ll argue one thing.
Knowing the judgment would be appealed, no matter what, the lower court found Trump guilty of insurrection as a fact. On appeal, this fact cannot be argued or tested again. It stands.
Brillant legal maneuver. She put Trump in an inescapable box. And here we are.
I’m just joining in to say I’m worried the Supreme Court is going to ignore that fact and make a decision that favors the party. They’ll even find a way to spin it that the decision only applies to the GOP
Yeah. Law’s not like computer code. The details of all the rules and precedent are a critical side to be aware of, but judges also have to balance the letter of the law against the obvious justice of the situation all the time. If it were just as simple as researching and following the rules to the letter, it’d be a lot simpler profession. But if you’ve ever been in court for any length of time you’ll see (or at least my experience has been) that the judge generally has one eye always firmly fixed on what’s actually the right thing to do. Surprisingly so. Exercising, well, judgement on where to draw the line – not just throwing out the letter of the law based on “eh I don’t feel like this outcome is right” but being willing to depart from the letter of the law if something clearly wrong is happening in front of you – is one of the most critical parts of what your job is as a judge.
I’m not really experienced enough at law to come at it from any standpoint other than “what’s the right thing.” I’m aware that as a matter of law, she’s on completely solid ground. I think though that in the actual practice of how judges are supposed to do their jobs, those two things aren’t as widely separate from each other as they might seem.
No. He didn’t. Tonnes of us not even in your slowly becoming joke of a country, know that isn’t true.
Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!
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It’s common in organized crime to use vague language in order to request crimes to be committed, so that there’s no literal statement “I need you my supporters to please kill the vice president for me.” Nonetheless, the communication is understood by both the speaker and listener to mean that that’s what he wants to be done. Usually it’s actually a lot less subtle than that collection of facts. If you don’t agree with my interpretation, though, how would you characterize that set of facts? What do you think was what Trump wanted his supporters to do?
Dude your post history follows US politics way too hard for anyone to believe you’re not part of said country. Don’t talk like you’re speaking from a foreigner perspective.
The “my socials” link on his profile also leads to some kind of (Mastodon instance?) server with a banner that alternates between “rape” “gore” “removed” in a kind of “Eat at Joe’s” type of rotation. I wouldn’t get your hopes up that he’s gonna go anywhere beyond “grrr look at me I’m so edgy, I’m saying offensive things! I’m hardcore”.
Edit: removed was the N word
My goodness, you say a lot of ignorant things.
Unfortunately, you’re completely wrong about that:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/25/trump-expressed-support-hanging-pence-capitol-riot-jan-6-00035117
“Meadows then left the dining room and informed other people nearby that Trump had signaled a positive view of the prospect of hanging the vice president, the panel heard.”
I went back and checked, and you’ve had time to update your profile picture, but not to respond to my comment with anything factual.
I fully anticipate some kind of snarky taking-a-superior-tone response (or silence), that still isn’t anything connected to factual reality or directly addressing what I said. Blah blah Sartre anti-semites