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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   29067 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023

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The Colorado Supreme Court holds:

A majority of the court holds that President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot. The court stays its ruling until January 4, 2024, subject to any further appellate proceedings.

[recent related discussion, slightly older]

The Colorado Presidential Primary is scheduled for March 5th, for both parties. As the decision notes, January 4, 2024 is "the day before the Secretary’s deadline to certify the content of the presidential primary ballot)"; while the matter is open to further stay should federal courts intervene, such an intervention would itself determine at least the state presidential primary.

How are the procedural protections? From the dissent:

As President Trump, argues and the Electors do not contest, section 1-1-113’s procedures do not provide common tools for complex fact-finding: preliminary evidentiary or pre-trial motions hearings, subpoena powers, basic discovery, depositions, and time for disclosure of witnesses and exhibits. This same concern was raised in Frazier; the then-Secretary argued that “it is impossible to fully litigate a complex constitutional issue within days or weeks, as is typical of a section 1-1-113 proceeding.”...

Despite clear requirements, the district court did not follow section 1-4-1204’s statutory timeline for section 1-1-113 claims. The proceeding below involved two delays that, respectively, violated (1) the requirement that the merits hearing be held within five days of the challenge being lodged, and (2) the requirement that the district court issue its order within forty-eight hours of the merits hearing.

And the other dissent:

Thus, based on its interpretation of Section Three, our court sanctions these makeshift proceedings employed by the district court below—which lacked basic discovery, the ability to subpoena documents and compel witnesses, workable timeframes to adequately investigate and develop defenses, and the opportunity for a fair trial—to adjudicate a federal constitutional claim (a complicated one at that) masquerading as a run-of-the-mill state Election Code claim...

and

Even with the unauthorized statutory alterations made by the district court, the aggressive deadlines and procedures used nevertheless stripped the proceedings of many basic protections that normally accompany a civil trial, never mind a criminal trial. There was no basic discovery, no ability to subpoena documents and compel witnesses, no workable timeframes to adequately investigate and develop defenses, and no final resolution of many legal issues affecting the court’s power to decide the Electors’ claim before the hearing on the merits.

There was no fair trial either: President Trump was not offered the opportunity to request a jury of his peers; experts opined about some of the facts surrounding the January 6 incident and theorized about the law, including as it relates to the interpretation and application of the Fourteenth Amendment generally and Section Three specifically; and the court received and considered a partial congressional report, the admissibility of which is not beyond reproach.

Did the Colorado Supreme Court provide a more serious and deep analysis of the First Amendment jurisprudence, at least?

The district court also credited the testimony of Professor Peter Simi, a professor of sociology at Chapman University, whom it had “qualified . . . as an expert in political extremism, including how extremists communicate, and how the events leading up to and including the January 6 attack relate to longstanding patterns of behavior and communication by political extremists.”

He testified, according to the court’s summary, that (1) “violent far-right extremists understood that [President] Trump’s calls to ‘fight,’ which most politicians would mean only symbolically, were, when spoken by [President] Trump, literal calls to violence by these groups, while [President] Trump’s statements negating that sentiment were insincere and existed to obfuscate and create plausible deniability,”

There are interpretations here other than that of the Russell Conjugation: that stochastic terrorism is limited to this tiny portion of space, or perhaps that shucks there just hasn't ever been some opportunity to worry about it ever before and they're tots going to consistently apply this across the political spectrum in the future. They are not particularly persuasive to me, from this expert.

Perhaps more damning, this is what the majority found a useful one to highlight : a sociology professor who has been playing this tune since 2017.

If you put a gun to my head, I'd bet that this is overturned, or stayed until moot. But that's not a metaphor I pick from dissimilarity.

This whole quagmire could be avoided if republicans simply let go of Trump and supported someone not so old and so indicted, but they love marching into a trap.

  • -23

Ah, so people won't protest Republican voters from voting for their preferred candidate, so long as those people approve of that candidate.

Why not simply say "Vote for the Democratic candidate" instead? Because even if they dump Trump and pick Nikki Haley, or Vivek Ramaswamy, or A.N. Other, there is going to be "Literally Hitler!" reaction to whoever it is - or at least, Super Suppressors:

From the leader of the insurrection to a billionaire-turned-governor from North Dakota, the GOP’s large candidate field — down to seven candidates — features a wide array of figures, all of whom are antagonistic toward voting and democracy to varying degrees. No one skips out on suppressing the vote, all the way down to your average GOP voter suppression policies, like photo ID requirements.

There we go - don't vote for any of them, just vote for good old Joe, Republican voter, and we won't stop you exercising your right to vote!

Ah, so people won't protest Republican voters from voting for their preferred candidate, so long as those people approve of that candidate.

They won't protest Republican voters from voting for their preferred candidate, so long as that candidate doesn't have some very specific disqualifying infractions.

From the leader of the insurrection to a billionaire-turned-governor from North Dakota, the GOP’s large candidate field — down to seven candidates — features a wide array of figures, all of whom are antagonistic toward voting and democracy to varying degrees. No one skips out on suppressing the vote, all the way down to your average GOP voter suppression policies, like photo ID requirements.

Maybe the Republicans should stop supporting voter suppression if they don't want Dems to complain about it? Expecting the opposition party to like your candidates is a bridge too far (notably, we're not quoting anything the GOP says about Dem candidates), but nobody is trying to get Haley or DeSantis (or RFK Jr.) disqualified.

  • -17

See, your bit about voter suppression is precisely why I don't believe the blah about "just select a decent guy, for crying out loud". Why are you jumping to "of course the Republicans suppress voters" rather than "Yeah, some on the Democratic voting side do go overboard about that"?

No matter who is selected, there is going to be "If they're Republican, they're fascists".

I mean, you can believe what you like, but as I said, asking your opponents to not criticize your publicly acknowledged policy positions is a bit silly. Of course, the GOP doesn't call it voter suppression for the same reason Dems don't call it illegal immigration, but it doesn't change the fact the GOP is on record being in favor of making it harder to vote.

No matter who is selected, there is going to be "If they're Republican, they're fascists".

The analog here is the GOP talking about how Dems are socialists planning to destroy the American way of life, i.e. normal political marketing. It might be nice if people spoke in less hyperbolic terms, but the fact that they aren't isn't indicative of much.

  • -10

Of course, all of this is operating under the presumption that the Democrats' concern that the GOP has become increasingly illiberal and authoritarian is baseless hysteria. If it's not, then saying "if they're Republican, they're fascists" is not only predictable, it's fairly reasonable.

Like, say, if one of the more senior Republicans attempted a procedural coup and incited a mob to attack Congress. And then the entire party decided to go along with it and purged everyone who didn't follow suit.

It's not just the criticism, it's the ratfuckery. We're talking about constant escalation. You think it's a uniquely anti-Trump phenomenon but that doesn't seem plausible to people who've observed nothing but continual escalation this side of the millennium.

I've been here the whole time. Until 2014 or so I was a Republican.

I'm going to need you to be more specific about "ratfuckery", because my experience over the past 23 years has been an ever-escalating right-wing persecution complex at the same time as they've become increasingly underhanded and unhinged.

It's funny reading this post claiming the right has been ever-escalating their persecution complex, just two posts down from you gasping about how every republican is an insurrectionist.

More comments

Maybe the Republicans should stop supporting voter suppression if they don't want Dems to complain about it?

The voter suppression narrative is BS that, where falsifiable, is falsified. It’s the democrats version of the kraken.

Not sure what you mean by that. GOP politicians are on-record as being in favor of targeted discouragement while GOP legislatures have been slapped down for passing targeted voter ID laws and contriving to re-disenfranchise felons in Florida (mentioned in the link above). That's to say nothing of things like suspicious patterns in polling place closures.

What is true, as near as I can tell, is that there isn't solid evidence for voter suppression efforts having a decisive impact on any particular election (anyone cares about). Partly this is because voting suppression tends to provoke short-term backlash, partly because more egregious efforts have been struck down, and partly because they're most likely to be implemented in already solidly red areas where they don't matter that.

But that's not a very strong defense. Regardless of how effective their efforts have been, the GOP continues to be openly supportive of making it harder to vote.

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