The Consequences of Dismissing Consequences

David French adds his voice to the chorus of pundits calling for Trump to be disqualified from appearing on presidential ballots

Guests listen to the opening prayer during a campaign event hosted by Republican presidential candidate former U.S. President Donald Trump on December 19, 2023 in Waterloo, Iowa. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Shortly after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled former president Donald Trump disqualified from appearing on ballots in the state, I tweeted, half-seriously, “The lawyers are going to get us all killed.”

That line popped into my head again as I read attorney David French’s most recent column in the New York Times. I’m quite personally fond of French, whom I’ve come to know via mutually respectful interactions on social media and in his frequent appearances as a guest on the “Beg to Differ” podcast at The Bulwark, where I’m one of the regulars. The truth is, I haven’t often been in a position of begging to differ with French these past few years. He and I agree on a lot, both morally and politically. That didn’t used to be true when it came to foreign policy, since he was a strong champion, and I a severe critic, of the War on Terror and how it was waged. But we’re in broad agreement on efforts to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s ruthless invasion of the country nearly two years ago. So even on international affairs, we’ve usually found ourselves on the same side through the recent past.

But that isn’t the case when it comes to the question of whether Trump should be disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Calling All Cowards

The title of French’s column is “The Case for Disqualifying Trump Is Strong.” I disagree, as I’ve made plain on a few occasions over the past few weeks. I’ll rehearse some of those arguments later on in this post. But the main thing I want to focus on to start is a single short paragraph of French’s piece—in journalistic parlance, its “nutgraf,” that is, the place early in the essay where French distills his argument down to its essence for his readers, showing them where he plans to go in the remainder of the column. In the preceding paragraph, he summarized the views of people like me, who focus on the likely consequences of disqualifying the man currently leading the Republican primary field in the polls by more than 50 points. This is French’s response:

Enough. It’s time to apply the plain language of the Constitution to Trump’s actions and remove him from the ballot—without fear of the consequences. Republics are not maintained by cowardice.

There are several points I want to make in response to this concise statement—and I’m going to take them in reverse order, beginning with the final sentence. “Republics are not maintained by cowardice” is, rhetorically speaking, a very powerful declaration, resonating as it does with the virtues of classical moral philosophy in the form of an exhortation. It’s the kind of thing those who championed the Iraq War wrote all the time in the months before the invasion. Don’t be cowards. Stand up to dictators. Destroy the monsters. Don’t be Neville Chamberlain and replay Munich. Put the forces of evil in their place. With honor. With noble deeds. With acts of righteousness and courage.

I have two observations about such rhetoric. First, it begs every question, presuming both the rightness and wisdom of the actions it seeks to encourage and inject with moral fervor. (One presumes such questions are answered in the remainder of the column. I’ll get to that soon enough.) Second, rather than accusing of cowardice fellow Americans who take a contrary position over going to war with a malevolent foreign regime, French’s current statement accuses of cowardice Americans who take a contrary position over how best to respond to members of the American polity. This time the monster that needs to be destroyed, the evil force that must be vanquished with resolution and courage, is right here at home. And it’s not just Trump. It’s the tens of millions of our fellow citizens who want him to be elected president again.

Which is to say that French has written an exhortation in favor of one faction within the United States using its interpretation of the country’s fundamental law to face down another faction within the United States over its preferred choice for president. For now I’ll just say I find this surprising and disappointing from someone who not long ago wrote a powerful and compelling book warning about the looming danger of the country tearing itself apart over its differences.

Daring the Heavens to Fall