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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30257 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

I have a lot of doubt about Trump's ability to win in 2024, but I can't think of any better option for Republicans to run. Who do you think the Republicans have who would have a better chance of winning the general election than Trump does? Haley slightly outperforms him against Biden in swing states according to a recent poll, but for me that's an "I'll believe it when I see it" kind of thing because to me Haley seems pretty devoid of charisma* and every single President since maybe George H.W. Bush has had at least some level of charisma, whether it's the Clinton and Obama "cool young guy" thing, the George W. Bush "down-home guy you can imagine having a beer with" thing, the Trump "funny macho troll" thing, or the Biden "cantankerous old guy who's willing to talk a bit of shit" thing.

But maybe I'm overrating charisma, or underrating how much of it the non-Trump Republican candidates have.

*Which is not entirely her fault, I think. It's just that to the viewer's ape brain, her combativeness works less well because she is a woman than it would if she were a man.

Who do you think the Republicans have who would have a better chance of winning the general election than Trump does?

I think the answer to that question is basically 'Anyone else on the stage at the Republican debates'.

It's not as if voters need to like a candidate in order to vote for them, polarization is too high for that to matter. Either side could run a sack of potatoes with an 'R' or a 'D' sewn onto it and get 45% of the vote (and this isn't even irrational, which party's priorities the candidate will be a conduit for has a much greater impact than variance in individual competence/character).

The problem with Trump is the same as the problem with Clinton - the other side hates and fears him so much that running him drives up turnout on the other side. Anyone who doesn't do that will likely have a better electoral outcome.

I think the answer to that question is basically 'Anyone else on the stage at the Republican debates'.

Spoken like a man who wants a democrat in the White House in 2025. Nobody else can get elected because everyone else sucks. Haley is a neocon pipe dream. DeSantis blew his load too early. These people can't overcome the demographic advantages of Democrats after decades of unrestricted importation of democrat voters.

Donald is the only proven loser amongst them in a presidential election, though. It’s not that criticism of them isn’t valid, it’s that much of it applies to Trump (who will preserve most ‘neocon’ foreign policy to the extent that it exists) and again, Trump isn’t a guaranteed winner either.

Trump is harder on China, on immigration, on NATO, than any neocon I've ever heard of, or any other politician in my lifetime. You can't make me believe that there's anyone else like him, it that he'd like anyone else, and you certainly can't make me believe that any of the more palatable Republicans can match his willingness to defy the uniparty.

At least, not until I see it for myself from someone else.

A quick glance at Commentary doesn’t suggest that Trump is tougher on China than the neocons. Of the major neoconservatives most other than Max Boot (who completely renounced neoconservatism years ago, hates Bibi, considers the Iraq/Afghanistan wars major mistakes now etc) are harshly anti-China. Commentary is literally publishing articles claiming the Chinese government is training the Iranian revolutionary guard, for a neocon that’s tantamount to calling for a declaration of war lmao. Kristol is tough on China on Twitter. Podhoretz was highly critical of Blinken’s ‘outreach’ efforts to China over the summer, aligning with Trump.

Podhoretz

None of those people have even tried to get elected once. Not even as dog catcher. Trump ran for president in 2000, at least, and intended to get elected.

They are not politicians, they are pundits, and I don't care to compare politicians to pundits.

Talk is cheap. They can say all these things, but will oppose any concrete actions against China.

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