The Supreme Court just turned us all into vigilante voters

[Nevilledog]

https://www.editorialboard.com/the-supreme-court-just-turned-us-all-into-vigilante-voters/


The conventional wisdom appears to be the US Supreme Court was right in ruling that neither Colorado nor any other state can remove Donald Trump from the ballot on 14th Amendment grounds. There appears to be a consensus of elite opinion believing it’s best to “let voters decide.”

However, as worthies such as Madiba Dennie and Thomas Zimmer have said, voters did decide. In 2020, they voted Trump out. He didn’t like that, so he organized an attempted paramilitary takeover of the US government in order to overthrow the democratic will of the American people. The Colorado Supreme Court decision to disqualify him as an insurrectionist was a lonely attempt to hold him legally accountable.

Colorado’s high court was doing what’s expected by a republican order founded on the principle of checks and balances. When the system’s integrity is under threat, as it was on January, 6, 2021, the rule of law demands democratic institutions administer commensurate justice. The Colorado Supreme Court tried that, as did elected officials in Maine and Illinois, but the US Supreme Court said no. Worse, elite opinion appears to believe that accountability is better left to voters.

I get it. It’s probably not a good idea to allow states to kick presidential candidates off their ballots, whether for good reasons, as was the case in Colorado, or for phony reasons, as would be the case in virtually any state controlled by the Republicans. But that’s not my point here.

*snip*