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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023

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and (possibly in the future) even eliminate conservative candidates through bog-standard abuse of process

Coming out to an election near you this winter. If states reign supreme, what’s to stop any state from stripping literally all of their political adversaries from their ballots? Why would they stop at national elections for that matter? All they need is a governor and a stacked court.

If states reign supreme, what’s to stop any state from stripping literally all of their political adversaries from their ballots?

I have heard many people argue that the current two-party system of "Republicrats" is already doing precisely that. Have you ever tried to run for public office? It's not always and everywhere completely insane, but certainly it can be a time-consuming and expensive process. Party machines grease the skids for you, so legislation is typically written with those machines in mind. But that means, if you are a political adversary of the dominant parties, then the laws on the books are overwhelmingly likely to work against you.

Fortunately, in many places Republicans and Democrats exist in small enough numbers that unaffiliated voters can occasionally drive legislation that places limits on the excesses of partisans seeking to strip their adversaries of electability. This is the most likely practical result: states that go overboard in stripping adversaries will face an angry uprising from independent voters. But in places with entrenched one-party rule, this is less likely to pose a meaningful threat.

More expansively: the main thing preventing this from happening in the past has just been good old-fashioned civic virtue. But the news media, education systems, etc. have been beating the "burn it all down" drum long enough that many, maybe most Americans now think that destroying their opponents is more important than finding a way to coexist with them.

I do agree States get to run their elections but in this case the State Court is citing constitutional law to remove him. Couldn’t the SC just rule that you can remove him but you can’t remove him for the reason you picked and claim Trump didn’t do an actual insurrection.

At the end of the day I would assume it’s the Supreme Court with ultimate authority to rule if he violated section 3 of the 14th amendment which would open the door for the SC for a narrow ruling that he was not in violation.

I do agree States get to run their elections but in this case the State Court is citing constitutional law to remove him.

Yeah, in morning's light I'm thinking about the difference between the law of disqualification versus the factual question of insurrection. SCOTUS isn't going to rule that insurrection isn't disqualifying, but if they do rule that (e.g.) insurrection requires some kind of criminal conviction then on remand Colorado will need to find a different excuse. But in a way that turns into a gift for Trump, who would then get to walk around saying "the media lies, SCOTUS itself cleared me of insurrection," which... well, I don't know. It would be nice if the Republican Party would just toss him out in the primaries, then this would all be moot, but that seems less and less likely to happen.