Monday open thread: The 14th Amendment case
Rumors have been swirling this weekend that today the Supreme Court will hand down its ruling on Colorado removing Donald Trump from the ballot due to his engaging in insurrection in violation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
I am in no way sanguine that this court, mired in right wing partisan corruption, will rule in any way which takes the plain meaning of the amendment's text. The conservative majority will find some way to invalidate the Colorado Supreme Court's decision, while at the same time not coming down with a decision as to the elephant in the room: Whether or not Trump engaged in insurrection. That's an electric line which I doubt any of the six conservative justices will want to touch.
At a time where we're facing a right-wing continuing insurrection, it would behoove this court to rule on whether or not what Donald Trump did mounted to insurrection. But I doubt we will attain any clarity. I predict that the majority decision will leave that nebulous, not siding with one end of the argument or the other.
As with the Court's decision to hear Trump's appeal asserting absolute immunity for anything he did as president, today—if the ruling does come down—should reify that there is no cavalry coming from that august body. We will simply have to gird our loins and do the job of defending this democracy ourselves. Those institutions entrusted to do so—the Supreme Court, one half of our national legislature, and the "free press"—are failing miserably in their briefs. None of them are up to the task of putting national need over petty, parochial concerns. None of them see as their task guarding our democratic system; Republicans in Congress and the Supreme Court are actively undermining it, while the press blissfully sails on, engaging in unseriousness and the quest for profit.
I wish these vaunted institutions recognized the duty they bear to this nation, irrespective of party loyalty or pecuniary interests. But nothing in this life is easy. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Those who were supposed to be the watchers on the wall are either missing in action, or letting in the enemy.
Therefore, we must take their place. It was ever thus. If they won't fulfill their obligations, then we must do so. In the end, we are the last line of defense.
If the Court rules as I suspect it will, it will not be cause for despair. It will merely be a recapitulation that we are responsible for our own fates. A god will not descend from the rafters and make everything right at the end of the drama. We, the actors strutting on this stage, will have to make our voices heard. We will have to direct the plot.
The struggles we face here are being faced by other free peoples across the Western world. We are not alone. It is in that recognition that we can claim our power. Eighty to one hundred years is all we can count on before history's lessons are forgotten and must be relearned. The battle is hard. You may think you can't go on. But we must go on. We owe it to ourselves and to those who will come after us. And how they will damn us if we fail.
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