Gift Article: January 6 Is Exactly What the Fourteenth Amendment Was Talking About
www.theatlantic.com
And ignoring its clear dictate is a dangerous choice to make.

As the Colorado Supreme Court wrote, January 6 meets the bar for insurrection “under any viable definition” of the term. The legal scholar Mark Graber, who has closely studied the Fourteenth Amendment’s history, argues that “insurrection” should be understood broadly—an act of organized resistance to government authority motivated by a “public purpose.” That certainly describes the Capitol riot, in which a violent mob attacked law enforcement and threatened members of Congress and the vice president in order to block the rightful counting of the electoral vote and illegally secure the victory of the losing candidate. The historical record also suggests that the amendment’s requirement that a prospective officeholder must have “engaged in insurrection” should also be understood broadly—meaning that Trump’s speech on the Ellipse that morning and his encouragement of the rioters while they smashed their way through the Capitol more than fit the bill.

  • @Sylver
    15•10 months ago

    We are all trying to show that it was not some amendment made for the confederacy specifically.

    You brought up the dirt farmers (“leaders”) of the confederacy

    • @AbidanYreEnglish
      1•10 months ago

      To be fair, I don’t think he’s the one that originally brought up dirt farming.

    • Zagorath
      -14•10 months ago

      Soon after losing the Civil War in 1865, states that had been part of the Confederacy began to send “unrepentant” former Confederates (such as the Confederacy’s former vice president, Alexander H. Stephens) to Washington as senators and representatives. Congress refused to seat them and drafted Section 3 to perpetuate, as a constitutional imperative, that any who violate their oath to the Constitution are to be barred from public office.

      Wikipedia can be wrong, but I’d love to see some evidence presented to explain why it is, in this case.

      • @AbidanYreEnglish
        17•10 months ago

        any who violate their oath to the Constitution are to be barred from public office.

        You’re the only one trying to say that doesn’t apply to trump.

        • Zagorath
          -15•10 months ago

          It’s the case Trump’s legal team will probably be making, and it’s one that a sizeable minority of Colorado’s entirely Democrat-appointed Supreme Court seemed to agree with.

          To be clear, there’s only one angle from which I think Trump gets out of this, if we assume a properly functioning legal system (which is itself, unfortunately, not a guarantee in America). For example, the District Court that originally heard this case said that the president was not an “officer” and thus the insurrection clause does not apply to it. This is patently ridiculous, and contradicts other sections of the US constitution. Obviously a president is an officer of the country over which he presides. A president who is found to have engaged in insurrection should therefore not be allowed to run again.

          But until Trump is found guilty in one of the many trials he is currently facing (Fulton County or the DoJ ones would be best), as a matter of law, it wouldn’t seem to follow rule of law to take a legal action that depends on that guilt.

          • @ashok36
            6•10 months ago

            He was found, as a matter of fact, to have engaged in insurrection in the same Colorado district Court case you referenced. I don’t think you’re nearly as informed as you think you are.

            • Zagorath
              -2•10 months ago

              You don’t think Trump’s legal team will make every argument they can? Certainly they’ll try the “president isn’t an officer and therefore 14th can’t apply” angle. They’ll also claim that even if it can apply, it shouldn’t here because he didn’t insurrect.