A few closing thoughts for the last day of a year I am happy to put in the rear view mirror, with the fervent prayer that the rot we saw in 2023 does not produce worse in 2024. Because that seems to be the direction we are headed: worse.
A perfect example is all those Progressives whooping and high-fiving over Maine’s Secretary of State’s decision to throw Donald Trump off the ballot for “insurrection,” citing the 14th Amendment. Like Shenna Bellows, rabid Biden groupie that she is, they didn’t read all five sections of the thing. And like the identical decision from four of the seven justices on the Colorado Supreme Court, her decision is liable to be thrown out by the Supreme Court as the fetid political compost that it is.
That said, the decisions and the celebrations are useful: they expose the single-party authoritarians among us. The “throw him out” mob, be it in Colorado, in Maine, or elsewhere, purports to be “saving democracy” by, you know, limiting the candidates for whom people can vote. Like Iran’s Ayatollahs, Myanmar’s Junta, China’s CCP apparatchiks or Venezuela’s Jefe Maximo, they are concerned that, lacking elite leadership, the people might choose the wrong guy. Call it “guided democracy.” Vladimir Putin does.
Both the Colorado Four and Ms. Bellows squeal about “insurrection,” that favorite shibboleth of the Left. They wrap themselves in the 14th Amendment’s “Insurrection” clause (Section three) but conveniently forget that there is no precedent for applying the clause to a president. None. In fact, there is very substantial evidence that the Framers did not regard the President as an “…officer under the United States,” reserving that appellation for appointed Federal officials.
They also forgot that the last application of this Section was in 1919, against a Socialist congressman, Victor Berger, who was subsequently seated after the Supreme Court decided that his conviction for espionage was in fact, judicial malpractice.
Not to mention that candidate Trump has neither been indicted nor convicted of “insurrection” or its pseudonyms. In fact he was specifically acquitted of that in his second Senate Impeachment. So while it seems from past practice that a criminal judicial process is not necessary, this case – being one of central national significance – might call for extreme prudence. “He’s out for insurrection because I say he’s an insurrectionist” is not a very convincing argument. Certainly not to the voters who picked him twice before because they were tired of being sneered at by Democrat leaders and of being told they were worthless oppressors guilty of creating all of the nation’s ills.
The Removalists also neglected the First amendment’s “Free Association” clause – a point in the GOP’s plea to the Supremes. It also would seem to violate the Fourth amendment’s abjuration that no one may be deprived of “…life, liberty or property without the due process of law…” a thought also repeated in the First section of the 14th amendment. Among those liberties would be the right to run for public office.
There’s also the minor inconvenience that Trump was still president while the supposed “insurrection” was occurring – meaning that he was leading an insurrection against the government he was leading…
Legal arguments aside, the Progressive Cheer Squad might also consider this: what is the endgame of continuing to disenfranchise Trump voters? Seventy-four million mostly-disaffected voters in 2020, now without a means to express their dissatisfaction, thanks to shenanigans like those in Maine and Colorado. What do Democrat leaders think they will do? Tug their forelocks and go back to their hovels? Some might. But when their country calls, are they going to answer? Probably not. As for the rest…
If our Progressive elites want subjects instead of citizens – which they apparently do, judging from their efforts – they may find themselves cursed instead of blessed. If history shows us anything, it is that grumpy, alienated subjects do little for their overlords willingly. Not pay them; not serve them; definitely not protect them. And they require constant attention, as England’s King George III discovered.
Perhaps our would-be rulers don’t care what happens in the country, as long as they get to sit on the throne and rule the wreckage. Perhaps they are too self-absorbed to realize that when the freedoms we enjoy today are gone, they’re gone. Thomas Hobbes’ terrible “war of all against all” will begin all over again, whether the eminences gris behind these heinous acts want it or not, whether they even realize it or not.
But the rest of us should realize. We should care. And we should act. Now, while there is still time to save our freedoms.