I am deeply torn over the question of whether Donald Trump should be allowed to run for president of the United States.<\/p>\n
On the one hand, I want him on the ballot because, as I have often said, he is<\/em> the Republican Party.\u00a0 He may be a neo-Nazi dictator wannabe and a lot more (or less, if you prefer) but Republicans have made it clear, by a landslide, that\u2019s who they want, and I do believe they should have the right to choose whom they want as long as it\u2019s legal.<\/p>\n But on the other hand, Section 3 of the Constitution\u2019s 14th<\/sup> Amendment clearly forbids Trump\u2019s taking office.\u00a0 It states that no one who has \u201cengaged in insurrection or rebellion against the {United States} or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof\u201d shall be a senator, representative, or a whole slew of other federal, state and local offices.<\/p>\n The Constitution does not say he has to be convicted of engaging in insurrection or rebellion, just that he did engage, and anyone who watched Trump fiddle while Rome burned on Jan. 6, or watched Congress\u2019 Jan. 6 hearings, knows full well that it was an insurrection and that he did engage.<\/p>\n That section does not use the word \u201cpresident\u201d and Trump\u2019s lawyers have come up with some imaginative arguments to show that Trump is immune, but most legal scholars seem to agree those arguments are far-fetched.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, one way or the other, it seems inescapable that the Supreme Court will be saddled with deciding whether he can run, and regardless of what the court decides it will be terribly wrong in the eyes of millions of people.<\/p>\n That will be true especially if it\u2019s a 6-3 or 7-2 decision along party lines, which seems most likely to happen.\u00a0 Only if it\u2019s a 9-0 or 8-1 decision will it have a chance of being accepted as legitimate by most Americans, but a 9-0 or 8-1 decision is highly unlikely.\u00a0 The result could be, and almost certainly would be, pandemonium, especially if the court rules against him \u2013 again, unlikely since it is a MAGA court.\u00a0\u00a0 But either way, pandemonium.<\/p>\n There is a simple solution, one that is not discussed often but is very real. That solution is contained in the last sentence of Section 3 of the Constitution\u2019s 14th<\/sup> Amendment.\u00a0 That sentence reads:<\/p>\n \u201cBut Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability\u201d \u2013<\/em> disability meaning anyone who has \u201cengaged in insurrection or rebellion,\u201d etc.<\/p>\n The question is whether both houses of Congress could reach that two-thirds majority, and I think they could and would.\u00a0 Every Republican would vote yes, and I would hope that every\u00a0 Democrat also would.\u00a0 Refusal to do so would infuriate Trump\u00a0 fans \u2013 rightfully, I think.\u00a0 Democrats deciding who Republicans can put on the ballot could cause all sorts of problems, including violence that Trump is hinting at almost every day now.<\/p>\n So please, congresspersons in both houses and of all parties, please call for a vote, and please vote to let the person run.\u00a0 Not only will Republicans get the person they want on the ballot, but all America needs him there so the deep differences between him and Biden, which is to say the deep differences between dictatorship and democracy, will not be blurred.<\/p>\n Americans must realize they are deciding whether they are voting to retain our present system of a government of, by and for all of us, or a government of, by and for a would-be neo-Nazi dictator, a criminally mentally ill person, a demagogue, a multiple felon that certainly includes the crimes of sedition and maybe \u2013 probably? — treason, a person who says he will \u201csuspend\u201d the Constitution, a person who, well, you know the list.\u00a0 If you want to read a long but nevertheless woefully incomplete list of problems with Trump you might want to look last week\u2019s post, Belief in Election Fraud Grows<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n If you are not a subscriber and you would like to\u00a0 subscribe, click here<\/u><\/a>. (It\u2019s free.) I am deeply torn over the question of whether Donald Trump should be allowed to run for president of the United States. On the one hand, I want him on the ballot because, as I have often said, he is the Republican Party.\u00a0 He may be a neo-Nazi dictator wannabe…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":408,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions\/408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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