Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said that while he didn’t want to do it, he had to remind people of how “severe” the situation is.
A top Republican official in Missouri is threatening to remove President Joe Biden from appearing on the ballot as retaliation for the determination in two other states that Donald Trump doesn’t qualify because he “engaged in insurrection.”
“What has happened in Colorado & Maine is disgraceful & undermines our republic,” Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft wrote on the social media site X on Friday. “While I expect the Supreme Court to overturn this, if not, Secretaries of State will step in & ensure the new legal standard for @realDonaldTrump applies equally to @JoeBiden!”
Ashcroft’s post came shortly after the Supreme Court agreed to review a decision by Colorado’s high court that found Trump could be barred from the state’s primary ballot because of his actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The current SCOTUS claims to be using the “common meaning of words” as their interpretation mechanism for the Constitution.
Assuming they have any bit of consistency whatsoever, the common meaning of words gives at least prima facie argument against Trump being able to run with zero argument against Biden being able to run.
And lucky us, the current SCOTUS has not really shown loyalty to Trump as a person. Here’s hoping that sticks around.
I’m more worried about future legitimate candidates being excluded. I’m not defending Trump in particular.
You should actually be more worried that violent insurrection becomes the norm.
Historically, if take away someone’s democratic option to express themselves then they become more likely to turn to violence.
Actually, the far right are more likely to turn to violence every time they lose, period. That’s always been the way of things. You’re conflating the Left’s values with the Right. The Right do not care about Democracy. Have you never sat through one of those fascist fucks “we’re not a Democracy, we’re a Republic” defense of minority tyranny? They care about winning at all costs. They’re as likely to turn violent is they lose 90/10 as if they lose because their leader was convicted of a felony or taken off a ballot for legitimate reasons.
If fascist win after having Trump removed from the ballot then it makes it even harder to legitimately argue that a particular candidate should stay on a future ballot.
If fascists take over the US, there will never be another legitimate election whether or not we take the correct legal action prior to that point.
But we’re talking Beer Hall Putsch leniency on Trump, and all that does is empower the actual fascists to take more extreme action knowing they will never face consequences. People are terrified that if they don’t give in to fascists, fascists won’t play fair.
Guess what? Fascists already won’t play fair.
But when the good guys don’t play fair they can become fascists.
Sure. Show me proof the good guys aren’t playing fair taking an insurrectionist off the Ballot because the Constitution demands it.
Whose democratic options to express themselves is being taken away?
Statistically it is non-white people, so why is it white people who are turning to violence?
MAGA voters.
Because they are MAGA voters?
How are MAGA voters losing the democratic options to express themselves?
? Not being able to vote for their preferred candidate.
Are you aware the Constitution sets out requirements for eligibility for president? Just because your feelings say you really want a particular person, it doesn’t mean you have a constitutional right to vote for them. For example, maybe I really want Arnold Schwarzenegger for president. Just because I prefer Arnold that does not mean he can be president.
Trumpers could vote for Trump in 2020 and they still staged a violent insurrection. So your point is both stupid and moot.
Unfortunately, Republicans don’t need Democrats to invent ways for them to be fascist, they’re quite capable of finding opportunities on their own
Let’s not make it even easier for them in the future.
It won’t. It’s a trick we’ve fallen for. We withhold Justice from the corrupt out of fear they use our justice against us illegitimately. Yet what we miss is that it only works if they have the ammo to do the same without using our justice against us. It’s a game to them to wrap their horrors in our good deeds, but they can’t actually commit more horrors because we do good.
And if we incorrectly apply false justice then it’s likely to come back and bite us in the ass.
The case against Trump must be watertight. The Senate and courts in two states don’t believe this is the case.
I agree 100%
I’m arguing elsewhere in this thread that we need to be careful to dot our I’s and cross our T’s in serving justice, but we’re talking about the Bad Faith argument here, and not whether the case against Trump was watertight. It doesn’t matter if we have a watertight case against Trump, Republicans will try to use this against us. It doesn’t matter if we took this action or not, Republicans will try to do things like this against us anyway.
But to your point (which is a real tangent), there’s no reason or precedent to apply a criminal burden of proof to a non-criminal statutory requirement, despite the fact some judges seem to want to. The Criminal burden of proof is extremely high because the consequences of criminal conviction are dramatic and possibly horrific, far worse than someone simply being left off a federal ballot. People have already been criminally convicted of collaborating with Trump to commit crimes. By even some civil burdens of proof, Trump has already been found liable for his role in the insurrection attempt.
If leaving someone of the ballot is made trivial then it will be used by bad people against good people.
It won’t be the good guys that make it trivial. The bad guys just get off by using real justice against us.
If Trump makes it into the General Election, whether he wins or loses, we are a fallen state whose Constitution is meaningless. And I GUARANTEE the bad people are already using the hell out of that.