In which we try once again to heal the divide
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.—complete text of section 3 of the 14th amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America
I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.—Donald Trump, January 20, 2017
All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.—Donald Trump, speech to supporters on January 6, 2021
In the Committee’s hearings, we presented evidence of what ultimately became a multi-part plan to overturn the 2020 Presidential election. That evidence has led to an overriding and straight forward [sic] conclusion: the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him. –Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate, page 8, “Executive Summary”
The text [of the Constitution] is the law, and the law must be observed.—Antonin Scalia
There has been much hand-wringing in the media lately over whether the Supreme Court of this republic will or will not allow states to strike Donald Trump from their Republican primary ballots, based on the clause in the U.S. Constitution which bars anyone from federal or state office if they have previously incited rebellion or sedition. If the Court decides in the states’ favor, he can presumably be struck from an eventual presidential election ballot as well.
If Trump is disqualified, the hand wringers opine, the whole election process will be delegitimized in the eyes of the American people, and there will be riots in the street. (Though perhaps not all streets. I think we’ll be fine here in Austin, for example, though there may be riots of joy on 6th Street, unless Governor Abbott deploys the Texas National Guard to suppress them.) Therefore (the logic goes) Trump should be kept on the ballot, and the decision as to whether he will be our next president left to the American people. Oh, I how I wish that could be!
It’s interesting that so many pundits are discussing whether Trump could or should be disqualified. But no one has asked whether the law allows Trump to run. This seems strange to me, since the Constitution is quite clear. It’s against the law for Donald Trump to be re-elected president.
The law says that someone who once swore to uphold the constitution and then incited an insurrection cannot hold any civil or military office in the United States. It doesn’t say ‘might not,’ ‘could not,’ or ‘should not.’ It says shall not.
And Donald Trump did swear to uphold the Constitution on January 20, 2017, before Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, a crowd of thousands, and a television audience of millions.
And Donald Trump did incite an insurrection. That is the conclusion of the bipartisan House committee that investigated the matter, a conclusion that presented copious amounts of explicit evidence, and was signed by, among others, the committee vice-chair, the impeccably conservative Liz Cheney, representative of the blood-red state of Wyoming.
I only mention the committee’s report in case you slept through January 6 2021, and missed some of Trump’s remarks before a rabid, adoring crowd, in which he openly mused that “all [Vice President Pence] has to do” is allow states to “recertify” the, you know, votes of the people. After which he was conspicuously unconcerned when the same howling mob threatened to hang his vice president for not following his casual suggestion.
So unfortunately there’s no room for interpretation. The law does not permit Trump to hold any civil or military office in the land, let alone President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of its mighty armed forces. It looks like riots in the streets are unavoidable.
But hold on one measly Mar-a-Lago minute! The framers of the 14th Amendment, in their wisdom, gave us a way out, a way that allows for common sense and forgiveness to have their say. The amendment states that even a villainous, seditious, rabble-rousing, fearmongering megalomaniac like Donald Trump can be allowed to hold office again if a two-thirds majority of both the House and Senate vote to make it so.
So I call upon Mike Johnson, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, to act now and invoke section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to “remove” the “disability” which prohibits Trump from being president of the United States or postmaster of Peoria. Once the hon. Representative from Louisiana explains to his chamber how vital another Trump presidency would be to the health of this Republic, he’s sure to get all the Republican votes and enough Democratic ones to assure the two-thirds majority. And then, it only has to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate by the same margin. And why would the Senate want to block the candidacy of a man who has openly attempted to destroy the republic?
So get on the stick and call a vote, Sen. Hakeem Jeffries. Because barring Trump from the ballot would be divisive. And no one heals divisions better than a would-be dictator.
The Garden of Eaton 