Some take a dim view of using the Constitution to disqualify the former president, saying only the voters have the right to decide. There are some big holes in their argument.
So what if Repubs decided to run an eight year old infant for president? Should we ignore the Constitution and “let the voters decide”? How about a non-U.S. person, say, Vladimir Putin? The voters have always had the power to decide, but they have to follow the law. As does everyone.
There are no lack of “undemocratic” clauses in the US Constitution (depending on how you define “democratic”). Presidents have to be born in the United States, minimum age of a President has to be 35. Presidents and Vice Presidents can’t be from the same state. In other words, even before the 14th Amendment, there were disqualifying factors. If a 30 year old or a naturalized citizen can’t run for President, do we declare that undemocratic?
Part of it is imagining that what the Framers of the Constitution intended was some sort of pure democracy. They, in fact, intentionally did not. The Supreme Court is picked by the Senate based on the nomination by the President. The President is elected by an Electoral College that, at least in the beginning, was intended to be a sort of parliament of electors in each state meant to decide which candidate was the most suitable. The Senate, of course, was, before the 17th Amendment, up to each state to decide. The only fully democratic Federal institution in the US at its ratification was the House of Representatives. The other chief offices in the Federal government were effectively chosen by at best indirect democratic means.
You know what’s undemocratic? Trying to overturn the results of an election.
You know what’s not undemocratic? Keeping someone who did that out of the White House.
Allowing voters to vote for dictators is exactly how you get a dictatorship. Healthy democracies bar potential dictators from the ballot. Keeping the choice limited (preferable one democrat and one blank line) is how this country is supposed to be run.
Fuck MAGA. Fuck Trump. God Bless Democracy
Great article. Might I add that voters in the past did democratically decide to elect leaders that then enacted the 14th amendment, just like other amendments that were added before our time, such as the 2nd amendment. If we don’t like the 14th amendment now then the voters should elect leaders to amend the Constitution again.
It’s as undemocratic as not letting Arnold run or anyone under 34
Don the con literally did like the single thing he could’ve done to be ineligible
The 14th amendment went through the very democratic ratification process.
If the question is “but I wanna vote for Trump so how do I do that in this supposed democracy?”….
the answer is clear and simple and direct.
The very amendment and section in question that specifies the disqualification being applied against Trump provides *more* detail on how to lift the disqualification than it gives on how to apply it.
You just use your **democratic** representative support and have Congress vote to un-disqualify Trump.
It’s that simple. It’s that direct. It’s *profoundly* democratic. If you squabble that nothing other than a raw plebiscite will satisfy you , then you are tremendously ignorant of how things work in the US. If you whine that you want your vote *now* to matter here, then let me help you – it does. You can vote in November 2024 to change the composition of Congress so that in Jan 2025 they lift this disqualification.
If you’re *still* whining at this point because you believe there won’t be enough support in Congress to lift the disqualification, then you really don’t want a democracy anyway now do you? You want minority rule – your rule.
You have to meet a whole gambit of requirements to be on the ballot and you don’t get “due process” when it comes to them either. It’s a matter of law. Follow the law or we aren’t a republic.
The *”let the voters decide”* crowd are going to be really steamed once they find out about the electoral college.
So maybe we should ignore that part of the Constitution too, since we’re now advocating it being optional?
If he doesn’t meet the constitutional criteria for the office he shouldn’t be on the ballot. No different than prohibiting a 25 year old from running for president.
I remember trying to run for president but I was 34
Imagine you went to a football match and the fans and not the referee decided if a player should be sent off for a red card foul. The referees are there to enforce the rules and players are free to proceed to act however you want within those rules. The fans don’t have to agree with the decisions but they contribute towards fair play.
Same logic applies here. Only in this case the referees left a pretty straightforward and sacrosanct rule book behind to avoid guess work, at least when it comes to the eligbility to run for office.
So many Americans think freedom means you get to just do whatever you want with no consequences and if someone tries to stop you then you’re being oppressed. That’s not what freedom means.
the constitution lays out requirements for who can and can’t be president. some of these requirements have been there since the beginning, but all have been for more than 150 years.
just now it’s time to talk about what’s democratic?
and the conversation is around a wannabe dictator who clearly thinks the constitution is the authority on this since he spent a ton of money waging a marketing campaign trying to use it (wrongly) to disqualify obama?
any aliens who could get here would just pass right by out of fear of being infected with this much dumb.
If Trump just complied with the authorities, he wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Seems that a President willing to shit on the Constitution and use any means necessary to stay in power is the essence of an Article 14, Section 3 disqualification.
We already have limitations on who can run for President. We have limitations on who can run for any office. We require candidates to be residents of the place they serve. We require candidates to be at least a certain age. We require presidential candidates to have not already served two terms. Disqualifying someone from running and serving based on trying to obstruct the function of the government is both in line with the law and in the spirit of democracy.
The paradox of tolerance.
Just as the most tolerant society must be intolerant of intolerance, democracies must be forbid those who seek to undermine the system from power.
It’s literally in the constitution
Why on Earth is every Democrat being interviewed about this not stressing that he’s being removed from Republican primary ballots? REPUBLICANS are kicking him off their own primary. That’s the headline.
Hey republicans maybe try picking a candidate that isn’t a convicted rapist, who tired to illegally subert a free and fair election and who insighted an insurrection to protect his ego when he did lose.
Trump can’t run anymore, he cant run for president cuz of his role in attempting to fake electors and stop the election certification, he can’t run becusee he stole classified and Secert information and showed it non authorized persons and probably sold it, and he can’t run. Like serious, he an overweight, incontinent, bald, demented, ego maniac….he can’t run, he can’t jog, he can’t stand up straight, he can barely walk….but he cannot run for president anymore.
Is that so hard?
What’s frustrating is that if conservatives had any sense of moral decency left in their black hearts or courage remaining in their rubbery spines, this could have all been nipped the bud long ago, before it ever blossomed into a constitutional crisis.
Instead, the worse it gets, the more that they double down on the madness and doom. Like a busted, coked-up gambler that resorts to clearing out their kids’ savings, just so they can let it all ride one more time.
What’s that thing they say? Oh yeah, it’s a constitutional republic…
I’m a Political Scientist and the only undemocratic thing we could do is allow tRump to continue running for public office after he attempted to overthrow our Democracy.
Also. we should immediately disband the Republican party.
Preservation of democracy isn’t what motivates Republicans. It’s winning – permanently.
Republicans: “Let the voters decide!”
Also Republicans: “We need to make voting incredibly difficult and we need to draw voting districts in a way that silences as many voters as possible so we can retain power”
It’s literally required by the Constitution. It was also Donald Trump’s choice or invalidate himself.
One would almost say it is a very democratic thing. It’s almost as if barring insurrectionist twats from running for office was in some document or something… Some important bit of law or whatever…
It’s as democratic as can be actually.
Nothing wrong from trying to ban a terrorist from running for president.
32 comments
Some take a dim view of using the Constitution to disqualify the former president, saying only the voters have the right to decide. There are some big holes in their argument.
So what if Repubs decided to run an eight year old infant for president? Should we ignore the Constitution and “let the voters decide”? How about a non-U.S. person, say, Vladimir Putin? The voters have always had the power to decide, but they have to follow the law. As does everyone.
There are no lack of “undemocratic” clauses in the US Constitution (depending on how you define “democratic”). Presidents have to be born in the United States, minimum age of a President has to be 35. Presidents and Vice Presidents can’t be from the same state. In other words, even before the 14th Amendment, there were disqualifying factors. If a 30 year old or a naturalized citizen can’t run for President, do we declare that undemocratic?
Part of it is imagining that what the Framers of the Constitution intended was some sort of pure democracy. They, in fact, intentionally did not. The Supreme Court is picked by the Senate based on the nomination by the President. The President is elected by an Electoral College that, at least in the beginning, was intended to be a sort of parliament of electors in each state meant to decide which candidate was the most suitable. The Senate, of course, was, before the 17th Amendment, up to each state to decide. The only fully democratic Federal institution in the US at its ratification was the House of Representatives. The other chief offices in the Federal government were effectively chosen by at best indirect democratic means.
You know what’s undemocratic? Trying to overturn the results of an election.
You know what’s not undemocratic? Keeping someone who did that out of the White House.
Allowing voters to vote for dictators is exactly how you get a dictatorship. Healthy democracies bar potential dictators from the ballot. Keeping the choice limited (preferable one democrat and one blank line) is how this country is supposed to be run.
Fuck MAGA. Fuck Trump. God Bless Democracy
Great article. Might I add that voters in the past did democratically decide to elect leaders that then enacted the 14th amendment, just like other amendments that were added before our time, such as the 2nd amendment. If we don’t like the 14th amendment now then the voters should elect leaders to amend the Constitution again.
It’s as undemocratic as not letting Arnold run or anyone under 34
Don the con literally did like the single thing he could’ve done to be ineligible
The 14th amendment went through the very democratic ratification process.
If the question is “but I wanna vote for Trump so how do I do that in this supposed democracy?”….
the answer is clear and simple and direct.
The very amendment and section in question that specifies the disqualification being applied against Trump provides *more* detail on how to lift the disqualification than it gives on how to apply it.
You just use your **democratic** representative support and have Congress vote to un-disqualify Trump.
It’s that simple. It’s that direct. It’s *profoundly* democratic. If you squabble that nothing other than a raw plebiscite will satisfy you , then you are tremendously ignorant of how things work in the US. If you whine that you want your vote *now* to matter here, then let me help you – it does. You can vote in November 2024 to change the composition of Congress so that in Jan 2025 they lift this disqualification.
If you’re *still* whining at this point because you believe there won’t be enough support in Congress to lift the disqualification, then you really don’t want a democracy anyway now do you? You want minority rule – your rule.
You have to meet a whole gambit of requirements to be on the ballot and you don’t get “due process” when it comes to them either. It’s a matter of law. Follow the law or we aren’t a republic.
The *”let the voters decide”* crowd are going to be really steamed once they find out about the electoral college.
So maybe we should ignore that part of the Constitution too, since we’re now advocating it being optional?
If he doesn’t meet the constitutional criteria for the office he shouldn’t be on the ballot. No different than prohibiting a 25 year old from running for president.
I remember trying to run for president but I was 34
Imagine you went to a football match and the fans and not the referee decided if a player should be sent off for a red card foul. The referees are there to enforce the rules and players are free to proceed to act however you want within those rules. The fans don’t have to agree with the decisions but they contribute towards fair play.
Same logic applies here. Only in this case the referees left a pretty straightforward and sacrosanct rule book behind to avoid guess work, at least when it comes to the eligbility to run for office.
So many Americans think freedom means you get to just do whatever you want with no consequences and if someone tries to stop you then you’re being oppressed. That’s not what freedom means.
the constitution lays out requirements for who can and can’t be president. some of these requirements have been there since the beginning, but all have been for more than 150 years.
just now it’s time to talk about what’s democratic?
and the conversation is around a wannabe dictator who clearly thinks the constitution is the authority on this since he spent a ton of money waging a marketing campaign trying to use it (wrongly) to disqualify obama?
any aliens who could get here would just pass right by out of fear of being infected with this much dumb.
If Trump just complied with the authorities, he wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Seems that a President willing to shit on the Constitution and use any means necessary to stay in power is the essence of an Article 14, Section 3 disqualification.
We already have limitations on who can run for President. We have limitations on who can run for any office. We require candidates to be residents of the place they serve. We require candidates to be at least a certain age. We require presidential candidates to have not already served two terms. Disqualifying someone from running and serving based on trying to obstruct the function of the government is both in line with the law and in the spirit of democracy.
The paradox of tolerance.
Just as the most tolerant society must be intolerant of intolerance, democracies must be forbid those who seek to undermine the system from power.
It’s literally in the constitution
Why on Earth is every Democrat being interviewed about this not stressing that he’s being removed from Republican primary ballots? REPUBLICANS are kicking him off their own primary. That’s the headline.
Hey republicans maybe try picking a candidate that isn’t a convicted rapist, who tired to illegally subert a free and fair election and who insighted an insurrection to protect his ego when he did lose.
Trump can’t run anymore, he cant run for president cuz of his role in attempting to fake electors and stop the election certification, he can’t run becusee he stole classified and Secert information and showed it non authorized persons and probably sold it, and he can’t run. Like serious, he an overweight, incontinent, bald, demented, ego maniac….he can’t run, he can’t jog, he can’t stand up straight, he can barely walk….but he cannot run for president anymore.
Is that so hard?
What’s frustrating is that if conservatives had any sense of moral decency left in their black hearts or courage remaining in their rubbery spines, this could have all been nipped the bud long ago, before it ever blossomed into a constitutional crisis.
Instead, the worse it gets, the more that they double down on the madness and doom. Like a busted, coked-up gambler that resorts to clearing out their kids’ savings, just so they can let it all ride one more time.
What’s that thing they say? Oh yeah, it’s a constitutional republic…
I’m a Political Scientist and the only undemocratic thing we could do is allow tRump to continue running for public office after he attempted to overthrow our Democracy.
Also. we should immediately disband the Republican party.
Preservation of democracy isn’t what motivates Republicans. It’s winning – permanently.
Republicans: “Let the voters decide!”
Also Republicans: “We need to make voting incredibly difficult and we need to draw voting districts in a way that silences as many voters as possible so we can retain power”
It’s literally required by the Constitution. It was also Donald Trump’s choice or invalidate himself.
One would almost say it is a very democratic thing. It’s almost as if barring insurrectionist twats from running for office was in some document or something… Some important bit of law or whatever…
It’s as democratic as can be actually.
Nothing wrong from trying to ban a terrorist from running for president.