Even though the Democrats’ plan to disqualify former President Donald Trump from appearing on the ballot has had a major legal setback, they persist in trying to use this tactic to influence the outcome of the 2024 election. Recently, a Democratic lawmaker insisted that there is a strong argument for using Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to argue that Trump is not eligible to hold office again.
This has been a hot topic over the past few weeks after anti-Trumpers once again floated the idea. There are many different elements in this equation, but I couldn’t help but notice another factor that many aren’t discussing.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) recently said there is a “powerful” argument for barring Trump from the ballot.
Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said Sunday “there’s a powerful argument to be made” for barring Donald Trump from the presidential ballot based on the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists holding public office.
“My sense is it’s probably going to get resolved in the courts,” Kaine said on “ABC This Week,” adding that Democrats’ focus should be on winning in 2024.
Legal experts have pointed to the 14th Amendment as a potential long-shot avenue to keep Trump from becoming president. The amendment includes a post-Civil War “disqualification clause” that bars anyone from holding public office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” The Constitution does not, however, spell out how to enforce this ban and it has only been applied twice since the late 1800s, when it was used extensively against former Confederates.
Election officials in battleground states, including attorneys general in Michigan and New Hampshire, have said they’re anticipating outside groups to file lawsuits on the matter, and are studying the legality of the provision and how it may disqualify Trump from appearing on ballots in their states.
In Florida, a federal judge crushed a lawsuit intended to prevent the former president from appearing on the ballot. She argued that the plaintiffs “lacked standing” to file the suit in the first place.
So here is what’s interesting about this whole situation.
Remember how Democrats and their close friends and allies in the activist media have been wailing and gnashing their capped teeth over Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was rigged? Ever since the outcome of the race was decided, they have even gone so far as to ban folks on social media for daring to suggest that there was some funny business in the counting of votes.
Yet, here they are trying to use a tenuous argument insisting that the 14th Amendment should disqualify Trump from holding office because he supposedly incited an insurrection against the United States government. Any sane person can see that this is not an effort to preserve the Constitution. The anti-Trump intelligentsia seeks to use the amendment to prevent their most feared opponent from potentially occupying the White House once again.
To put it simply: Democrats are using the 14th Amendment to rig the 2024 election.
If these were serious people, they would realize that trying to use the Constitution to prevent a political opponent from holding office while also complaining about his allegations that the past election was rigged doesn’t quite make sense. Apparently, the irony is completely lost on these TDS-suffering malcontents.
Democrats: "Nobody rigged the 2020 election and nobody's going to rig the 2024 election!"
— Jeff Charles, An Awful Pundit🏴 (@jeffcharlesjr) September 3, 2023
Also Democrats: "Let's see if we can sue states to remove Trump from the ballot so he can't win the 2024 election!"
As I’ve already pointed out, this gambit is highly unlikely to succeed. Legal scholars have pointed out that even if it could be proved that Trump’s rhetoric contributed to the riot, he was not actively engaged in fomenting a rebellion or insurrection. At no point did he exhort his supporters to use violence at the Capitol building on Jan. 6 or at any other time.
Of course, none of this matters to the Democrats, who are desperate to ensure that Trump is out of the picture. It is why they are also relying on a series of politically motivated indictments to harm his chances of being president again. It is difficult to tell if Trump’s legal issues will negatively affect his campaign in the general election if he wins the nomination at this point. A recent Wall Street Journal poll has Trump essentially tied with President Joe Biden at the moment.
Nevertheless, unless Democrats manage to hit pay dirt and get Trump behind bars, the people will eventually decide who they want to lead the country going forward. If Democrats want to get rid of the former president once and for all, they will have to do it the old-fashioned way: By beating him at the ballot box.
