Dear America,
This morning the Supreme Court of the United States decided in favor of Donald Trump and against the decision of the Supreme Court of the State of Colorado, ruling that Donald Trump cannot be denied the opportunity to appear on the primary ballot of the Republican Party in that state seeking the party nomination for President of the United States. I have felt considerable apprehension over the case as it pended before the highest court in the land ever since Trump's lawyers appealed the state decision, and now that the SCOTUS decision has been issued--and I would add that it was unanimous, liberals and conservatives in agreement--my apprehension has been converted to fear. It is not a predetermination of the case against Trump over the January 6th insurrection, but it certainly bodes ill in that regard in that section 3 of the 14th amendment to our constitution prohibits an insurrectionist from holding not just federal office, but state office as well, and thus, this decision raises a question: If Trump decided to run for governor of Colorado, could that state bar him from doing so, or from holding that office if he won? It seems to me that the plain language of The Constitution clearly was intended to preclude either advent, but does this decision constitute a precedent precluding a state from exercising a power that seems clearly to have been provided by the constitution? And if so, are there other powers provided by The Constitution that are also in jeopardy of rescission under some as-yet-unforeseen circumstance?
Until now, I never would have had any such concern. While we have had conservative and liberal courts in the past, the political complexion of the court never seemed a threat to our liberties before. But now, with a six to three imbalance in the conservative direction on The Court, and with a liberal minority so myopic as not to see the implicated moral hazard that today's Colorado decision precipitates, the potential for reversion to the days of monarchy, or the advent of authoritarianism seems that much greater...the doom of American democracy that much greater a threat...with the prospect of electoral victory of Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election looming in the air. And what that portends is an electorate willing to silence American humanism and curtail the right of the people to practice it in favor of a peremptory ethos that prescribes the kind of evangelical fervor and sanctimony that might well lead to the re-emersion of witch trials and McCarthyism. We are on a slippery slope thanks to not just the conservative wing of The Court, but the liberal wing on which many of us have counted for sanity on fundamental matters of law and rights as well. I fear there's trouble, my fellow American friends, right here in America's capital city.
There is, however, a way in which we can inoculate our beloved country to prevent its backslide into totalitarianism. We can vote. Many advents make this so, though this one bodes danger more than any other I can think of other than January 6th itself. If a constitutional provision as plain on its face as section 3 cannot be counted on to keep evil from our doorstep, we must all take refuge in the only fortification available: the ballot box. Even the Supreme Court can't take that away from us as long as we occupy it...at least as long as we occupy it to good effect. So now it is up to us to prevail upon fickle Democrats, reasonable Republicans and members of the uncommitted plurality to exercise a veto on the decay in the institutions that are charged with protecting our liberties. We cannot lower ourselves to a Trumpian form of insurrection, but we must take whatever measures are allowed by law. That means engaging in the political process at the ground level, at least in states and venues in which Trumpism prevails, and every American knows whether that misfortune persists where he or she is registered. I cannot say what options are available toward that end, and surely they vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but they all harbor under the rubric "activism." We must all be open to activism now. Our lives, both figuratively and literally, given what the Trump mania has produced in human depravity and gangster mentality, are in jeopardy and only we can fend off the miscreant and his minions. Only we! That's us, America.
Your friend,
Mike
This morning the Supreme Court of the United States decided in favor of Donald Trump and against the decision of the Supreme Court of the State of Colorado, ruling that Donald Trump cannot be denied the opportunity to appear on the primary ballot of the Republican Party in that state seeking the party nomination for President of the United States. I have felt considerable apprehension over the case as it pended before the highest court in the land ever since Trump's lawyers appealed the state decision, and now that the SCOTUS decision has been issued--and I would add that it was unanimous, liberals and conservatives in agreement--my apprehension has been converted to fear. It is not a predetermination of the case against Trump over the January 6th insurrection, but it certainly bodes ill in that regard in that section 3 of the 14th amendment to our constitution prohibits an insurrectionist from holding not just federal office, but state office as well, and thus, this decision raises a question: If Trump decided to run for governor of Colorado, could that state bar him from doing so, or from holding that office if he won? It seems to me that the plain language of The Constitution clearly was intended to preclude either advent, but does this decision constitute a precedent precluding a state from exercising a power that seems clearly to have been provided by the constitution? And if so, are there other powers provided by The Constitution that are also in jeopardy of rescission under some as-yet-unforeseen circumstance?
Until now, I never would have had any such concern. While we have had conservative and liberal courts in the past, the political complexion of the court never seemed a threat to our liberties before. But now, with a six to three imbalance in the conservative direction on The Court, and with a liberal minority so myopic as not to see the implicated moral hazard that today's Colorado decision precipitates, the potential for reversion to the days of monarchy, or the advent of authoritarianism seems that much greater...the doom of American democracy that much greater a threat...with the prospect of electoral victory of Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election looming in the air. And what that portends is an electorate willing to silence American humanism and curtail the right of the people to practice it in favor of a peremptory ethos that prescribes the kind of evangelical fervor and sanctimony that might well lead to the re-emersion of witch trials and McCarthyism. We are on a slippery slope thanks to not just the conservative wing of The Court, but the liberal wing on which many of us have counted for sanity on fundamental matters of law and rights as well. I fear there's trouble, my fellow American friends, right here in America's capital city.
There is, however, a way in which we can inoculate our beloved country to prevent its backslide into totalitarianism. We can vote. Many advents make this so, though this one bodes danger more than any other I can think of other than January 6th itself. If a constitutional provision as plain on its face as section 3 cannot be counted on to keep evil from our doorstep, we must all take refuge in the only fortification available: the ballot box. Even the Supreme Court can't take that away from us as long as we occupy it...at least as long as we occupy it to good effect. So now it is up to us to prevail upon fickle Democrats, reasonable Republicans and members of the uncommitted plurality to exercise a veto on the decay in the institutions that are charged with protecting our liberties. We cannot lower ourselves to a Trumpian form of insurrection, but we must take whatever measures are allowed by law. That means engaging in the political process at the ground level, at least in states and venues in which Trumpism prevails, and every American knows whether that misfortune persists where he or she is registered. I cannot say what options are available toward that end, and surely they vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but they all harbor under the rubric "activism." We must all be open to activism now. Our lives, both figuratively and literally, given what the Trump mania has produced in human depravity and gangster mentality, are in jeopardy and only we can fend off the miscreant and his minions. Only we! That's us, America.
Your friend,
Mike
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