Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

The decision by the Colorado supreme court to ban Donald Trump from the Republican primary has received pushback from some predictable and some not-so-predictable quarters.

The former president’s supporters of course consider him the great Maga martyr, temporarily hindered by nefarious elites from his rightful return and revenge; in this morality play, the US supreme court, besieged with accusations of being undemocratic, can now play the savior by putting him back on the ballot and making the people Trump’s ultimate judge.

Some liberals also fuss about the political fallout of the decision, worried that barring Trump from running will provoke chaos and violence. And the left, suspecting a “liberal plot against democracy”, is not happy either: they reproach the liberals who welcome Trump’s disqualification for wanting to short-circuit the political process – thereby revealing deep distrust of democracy or at least defeatism about confronting Trump in an open contest. All these concerns are mistaken.

The Colorado supreme court comprehensively refuted Trump’s claims, especially the ones bordering on the absurd. The justices patiently argued that parties cannot make autonomous, let alone idiosyncratic, decisions about who to put on the ballot – by that logic, they could nominate a 10-year-old for the presidency. They also painstakingly took apart the idea that the now famous section three of the 14th amendment covers every imaginable official expectation of the president. In terms clearly tailored to appeal to justices on the US supreme court, they explain that plain language and the intent of the drafters of the amendment suggest that insurrectionists – including ones at the very top – were not supposed to hold office again, unless Congress voted an amnesty with a two-thirds majority.

The court’s majority also made the case that the House of Representatives’ January 6 report is not some partisan attack on poor Trump and hence could be admitted as evidence; they then drew on that evidence to show that Trump had clearly engaged in insurrection; they did not have to prove that Trump himself had led it (of course, he didn’t valiantly enter the Capitol to “save democracy” – his words – but tweeted the revolution from the safety of the White House).

We know that few Maga supporters will be swayed by the evidence – in fact, the entry ticket to Trump’s personality cult is precisely to deny that very evidence. But it is more disturbing that liberals still think that prudence dictates that Trump should run and just be defeated at the polls.

For one thing, the same liberals usually profess their commitment to the constitution – and the Colorado court has given an entirely plausible reading of that very document. Should it simply be set aside because supporters of a self-declared wannabe dictator threaten violence?

Some liberals also appear to assume that, were Trump to lose in November 2024, their political nightmare would stop. But someone who has not accepted defeat before, doubled down on the “big lie”, and ramped up authoritarian rhetoric is not likely to just concede. Would the logic then still be that, even if the law says differently, Maga supporters must somehow be appeased?

The more leftwing critique is the most interesting. Liberals are charged with having a Mueller moment again. By trusting courts to save democracy, they reveal how little faith they have in the people; they appear to hope that, magically, wise old men (it’s usually men) like Robert Mueller, acting for more or less technocratic “institutions”, will solve a challenge through law when it should be solved politically.

The only question is: by that logic, are any measures meant to protect democracy but not somehow involving the people as a whole as such illegitimate? Had Trump been impeached after January 6, would anyone have made the argument that this was the wrong process and that he just should keep running in elections no matter what?

Countries other than the US are more comfortable with the notion that politicians or parties expected to destroy democracy should be taken out of the democratic game. The threshold for such a decision has to be very high – clearly, there’s a problem if attempts to save democracy are themselves undemocratic. Here the Colorado decision is more vulnerable: as one of the dissenting judges pointed out, Trump might not have been given due process; even prosecutor Jack Smith, a master legal chess player, is not going after Trump for insurrection.

Three factors can mitigate anxieties about undemocratic measures to save democracy, though: one is that, before a drastic decision like disqualification is taken, an individual has to exhibit a very consistent pattern of wanting to undermine democracy. Check, for Trump.

Second, there has to be some room for political judgment and prudence: disqualification is not automatic and not for life; in theory, Congress could pass an amnesty for Trump in the name of democratic competition.

Third, banning a whole party can rightly make citizens with particular political preferences feel that their voices are silenced; in this case, though, no one is removing the Republican party. And, of course, two Trump epigones remain on the ballot.

Donald Trump first came to America's attention as a political actor back in 2011, when he became the self-appointed leading voice on the right insisting that President Barack Obama had been illegally elected president because he wasn't born in the U.S. He made all the rounds of the news shows demanding that Obama produce his birth certificate, even claiming that he sent people to Hawaii, Obama's birthplace, and teasing to the "Today Show" audience that "they cannot believe what they’re finding." When Obama produced the birth certificate, Trump claimed "an extremely reliable source" told him it was a forgery. This birther campaign went on for years until Trump was elected president in 2016. And it was all a lie.

Isn't it so typically Trump that after all that he would be the one disqualified from the presidential ballot? At least that's what the Colorado Supreme Court ruled last night in a case that cites the 14th Amendment barring officers of the government from running if they've participated in an insurrection. The court found that he did that and said the Constitution applies to presidents as well.

The case is going to the U.S. Supreme Court, of course, as everyone expected. But if anyone thinks the high court will defer to a state supreme court out of their often-stated commitment to "states' rights," I wouldn't hold my breath. It's very likely they'll agree to take it up and will decide it one way or another. This election is going to test Donald Trump's belief that "his" three justices would save him. They refused to step up in 2020 but with potential jail terms looming and unprecedented constitutional challenges facing them, he might just luck out.

The court was already knee-deep in Trump cases anyway. They will let us all know this week if they plan to take up the special counsel's request that they weigh in early on the question of whether Trump has immunity because he was president when he tried to stage a coup. He filed with both the DC Circuit Court of Appeals as well and they have already said they'll take it up in a couple of weeks so the Supremes may decide to wait until they issue their opinion.

They also agreed to take up another January 6 case brought by Joseph Fischer, a man who stormed the Capitol that day and is charged with obstructing an official proceeding. If the Court agrees with Fischer that this law has been wrongfully applied, hundreds of people convicted of that crime will have their convictions overturned or the charge dropped. One of them could be Donald Trump who has been charged with that same crime.

If the court decides that Trump has immunity because he was acting in his official duties when he incited a riot that day, it's game over anyway and the January 6 case is pretty much dead. It's hard to believe they'd do that. Then again most of us didn't think the court would take up Bush v. Gore and order the counting of votes to stop either. Still, it is important to note that this court has shown some restraint with Trump cases so far, including a case in which he tried to claim "absolute immunity" but they ruled unanimously against him. So they may decide that he shouldn't have immunity in this case either, which of course he should not.

The idea that it was his official duty to call up election officials and say, "So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break," is so ludicrous that it makes your head hurt.

But they could really muck things up with a bad ruling in the Fischer case which seems as if it could be their reasoning for taking the case this term. Sure, they'll grant that Trump isn't immune from accountability but they could easily find that all of those patriotic citizens who ransacked the Capitol and threatened the vice president and speaker of the House may have been unruly but that the charge of obstructing an official proceeding wasn't meant to cover those particular crimes. You can bet that Trump's lawyers are going to ask for a stay until they decide it — and that would give the court the excuse they may be looking for to delay Smith's case until after the election.

If the court grants Trump a stay until they decide that issue, Smith could drop the two charges that pertain to that law, leaving two others: conspiracy to deny Americans their rights and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. So maybe the court wouldn't see the usefulness in helping Trump out with that. On the other hand, the argument set forth by Fischer, that the law was meant to apply to document mishandling, actually does apply to Trump since he was involved in the fake elector scheme.

The only thing we know at this point is that the Supreme Court is now going to be involved in three major Trump election cases as we go into the election year. Do we really think the Supreme Court with a six-three right-wing majority, three of whom were appointed by Trump to take the heat for Trump being held accountable for his crimes?

It really should be a 5-3 majority because Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself as former Chief Justice William Rehnquist did in the Nixon case. (He had been in Nixon's Department of Justice before he joined the court.) Thomas has not only been exposed as a thoroughly corrupt judge who really should resign in disgrace anyway (with even more damning evidence coming out just this week) but the fact that his wife was heavily involved in the very insurrection Trump is accused of fomenting makes it even more obvious. He won't and they can't make him. He does what he wants. And in any case, they would still have a majority if they all stick together to protect the former president from the consequences of his actions. Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell saw to that.

I don't think anyone can predict what's going to happen. If the court does rule against Trump and somehow prevents him from running we know all hell will break loose, but what else is new? Unless Trump is exonerated and wins the election that's going to happen anyway. If the court is smart it will take my colleague Amanda Marcotte's advice and pull the band-aid off sooner rather than later. Maybe they understand that if Senate Republicans had lived up to their responsibilities and convicted Trump in his second impeachment for inciting the insurrection as they should have the GOP and the country wouldn't be in this mess today. But I wouldn't count on it. salon

Justice goes to the highest bidder.

A second video has been recovered by police showing Bridget Ziegler, a cofounder of the conservative Moms for Liberty, engaging in sexual relations with a woman, sources said.

Quote:

A second video has been recovered by police showing Bridget Ziegler, a cofounder of the conservative Moms for Liberty, engaging in sexual relations with a woman, sources said.

Here
Moms For Liberty is, as most will know, the (or one of the) main far right organizations campaigning against LGBT rights and responsible for the recent wave of book banning in schools.

She really didn't say that, right???

We’ve been around the block many times on this question of why Joe Biden is unpopular, whether he’s a weak candidate, whether some other Democrat should replace him, etc. My general take has been that we should be clear with ourselves that it is basically an academic point because Biden will be the nominee. Recently, one of the numbers analysts I follow on Twitter, Lakshya Jain, pointed me to the actual poll data showing that none of the apparently attractive national Democratic possibilities do any better than Biden. Indeed, he seems to do a bit better, if not by a huge amount.

We can quibble with this data. National Democrats haven’t heard that much about Gretchen Whitmer or Gavin Newsom or Josh Shapiro. That’s true. It’s also true that the day before they get into the race is their final day before getting submitted to the right-wing media flesh grinder and the more normal scrutiny of the national press. It cuts both ways. If any of them are obviously better candidates it should show up even in preliminary polling. But it doesn’t.

Biden’s own numbers do give us a lot of ammunition to argue he’s a weak candidate. Anemic approval, lots of measures of dissatisfaction. But if none of these relatively well known and successful governors poll any better, what does that tell us?

I believe it illustrates a pattern affecting both some on the left who are genuinely anti-Biden for ideological or characterological reasons and others who bear the President no ill will but are just really worried about next year’s election. There’s a basic, almost algebraic equation at work. By any reasonable measure Donald Trump is wildly unfit to be President. I don’t need to catalog the reasons. He should be a really weak candidate. Many of us are deeply invested in the idea that Donald Trump should be very beatable. It’s upsetting and demoralizing to admit that he’s not. But he’s not. To avoid the psychic dissonance this creates many of us adjust the variables on the other side of the equation to make the issue go away. If Biden is an extremely weak candidate, then Trump can be pretty weak too.

Efraim Halevy, a senior Mossad official in the 1970s and its director from 1998 to 2002, told the Guardian that force was only effective if used in the correct political circumstances.

“If Hamas emerges as a total loss at the end of the war, then Israel has won the war … but this does not solve the Palestinian problem and the Palestinians will still be around,” Halevy said.

Less well known is an anecdote related by prime minister Menachem Begin, who in 1982 was grilled by the Senate foreign relations committee in Washington about Israel’s allegedly disproportionate use of force in Lebanon.

The Times of Israel reported in 2020: “‘A young senator rose and delivered a very impassioned speech – I must say that it’s been a while since I’ve heard such a talented speaker – and he actually supported Operation Peace for the Galilee,” Begin told Israeli reporters after he returned to Jerusalem.

“The senator – Biden – said he would go even further than Israel, adding that he’d forcefully fend off anyone who sought to invade his country, even if that meant killing women or children.

“I disassociated myself from these remarks,” Begin said. “I said to him: ‘No, sir; attention must be paid. According to our values, it is forbidden to hurt women and children, even in war … sometimes there are casualties among the civilian population as well. But it is forbidden to aspire to this. This is a yardstick of human civilization, not to hurt civilians.’”