America's Legitimacy Crisis—1
For CNN, I wrote about why the Colorado Supreme Court ruling is a terrible mistake
There’s no paywall on this one, so you can just click here to read my initial thoughts about what four out of seven judges on the Colorado Supreme Court have done with their move to disqualify Donald Trump from appearing on ballots in the state (and also blocking the Colorado secretary of state from counting write-ins for him).
I don’t use the phrase “legitimacy crisis” in this relatively short piece, but that’s really what I’m talking about. (The “1” in my headline here signals that I’ll be returning to that theme and elaborating on the point in a follow-up post in the coming weeks.) Donald Trump is both a symptom of this underlying crisis and an accelerant for it. But so is the attempt to find a legal remedy for what is fundamentally a political problem. For more on this theme, in the meantime, I recommend a short post by my friend and fellow Substacker Noah Millman and my brief exchange with Damir Marusic (and others) on Twitter/X.
Barring additional intervening big news, my next post will be a cultural recap of 2023. That will come next week on Tuesday or Wednesday. For those of my subscribers who celebrate, I wish you a very merry Christmas. See you on the other side of the holiday.
It’s not a political problem. It’s a legal problem. He broke the law, he incited an attack on our Capitol and our Constitution. He refused to implement his sworn oath to protect US from domestic terrorists. This is not the time to be chicken or “soft on crime.” If the US Supreme Court gives him a pass, then and only then will this be a political problem. Americans will vote. Love will trump hate.
Sounds like we're back to arguing whether Trump should be allowed to get a free ride, or instead be prosecuted for his crimes.
I agree with people like Damon that we need a criminal conviction first before we start keeping people off ballots, but I'm pretty confident that The Best Supreme Court that Money Can Buy will take the position that eviscerates the 14th Amendment [they only like the pro-slavery part of the Constitution] and we'll be back where we started.
Its nice that we still have romantics who think the Rule of Law should govern us.