I’m writing this piece at the same time that I’m listening to the oral arguments at SCOTUS about whether TFG should be barred from the Colorado presidential primary ballot. I feel pretty confident about where this is going to end up. I’m not an attorney but I am excellent at sniffing out bullshit. And this session is full of bullshit.
The extremists on the court are very concerned that a single state could do something that would impinge on someone’s constitutional rights. The same extremists also have ruled over and over that states can take rights from women and people of color—but rich white guys are strictly off limits, as is the right to vote for rich white guys.
But they can’t come out and say that so they’re throwing stuff at the wall. Justice Brett “I LIKE BEER, OK?” Kavanaugh crocodile teared about the poor voters who wouldn’t get to vote for their favorite insurrectionist. Are we seriously supposed to feel sorry for a bunch of degenerates who don’t care about democracy?
The most disappointing exchange was Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s embrace of the talking point that a president—who takes an oath of OFFICE and who is said to occupy the OFFICE of the President—is not covered in the wording related to government officers. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Jefferson Davis would have been stopped by 14th Amendment if he had tried to run for president after the Civil War.
But Occam’s Razor has no application in this iteration of SCOTUS, and doubly so if it pertains to hurting women or people of color, or if it involves protecting TFG. This was amply illustrated over the point that the 14th Amendment is self-executing…except when it’s not. Now no one who wanted to limit its self-execution could clearly explain how it wasn’t, but we were assured it was until it wasn’t. You know, kind of like Catch-22.
Basically the justices decided to muddy the discussion to the point where you are left wondering if the 14th Amendment means anything at all. Talking Points Memo had a good summation of this point:
But what I keep coming back to is this point that Judge Luttig makes so well: If this isn’t a proper application of the Disqualification Clause, then what it is? The worst possible decision by the Supreme Court would be one that renders the Disqualification Clause impotent and inapplicable to any situation.
Ugh, that is such a cynical, and completely logical, takeaway from all of this.
I predict that TFG will be staying on all ballots throughout this election cycle. I have said over and over that the only thing that can save the country from fascism is us, the voters.
I also see a bright side to all of this: TFG is the weakest candidate that the GOP can run, and he is a spectacularly awful candidate. He’s going to be carrying the punches of the civil cases that are currently underway and if Judge Tanya Chutkan can swing it, he may be convicted of criminal acts before the election. Even if he’s not, he’s still the GOP candidate that I want Joe Biden to face in November.
Lots of wordy nonsense deserves a nonsense song:
