site banner
zataomm  4mo ago (text post)   5332 thread views

Colorado Supreme Court Thread

Link to the decision

I don't know to what extent there are established precedents for when a topic is worthy of a mega-thread, but this decision seems like a big deal to me with a lot to discuss, so I'm putting this thread here as a place for discussion. If nobody agrees then I guess they just won't comment.

11
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

American insider baseball? I lack the context to make sense of this.

Edit: Thanks for the explanations, makes sense now.

American states have a vast amount of power, but the post great society consensus was that they would only use this power within certain guidelines that were sometimes explicitly written out and sometimes hashed out by fighting in court, with federal money holding them to those guidelines. Technically, elections are run by states, and states are supposed to regulate eligibility and the like. And in fact most states have some rules on who can be on the ballot beyond ‘natural born citizen over 35’- there’s probably a signature requirement, filing deadline, etc. This isn’t particularly controversial, but rules around voting can be.

Technically speaking, Colorado is within its rights to remove trump from the ballot for insurrection. It’s phenomenally stupid, but it would have been their job had trump led a rebel army(which he did not). It is, however, an enormous escalation and ‘out of bounds’ in the Overton window, not to mention undemocratic. But also Colorado is a safe blue state which would vote for the devil before trump, so it won’t make any difference to the results. It’s purely virtue signaling in a pure toxoplasmosis of rage way.

Basically this.

And that’s the rub, of course- it’s within Colorado’s purview to remove Trump from the ballot. It’s within any state’s purview to remove candidates from the ballot. It really shouldn’t be, of course, but it is. The Supreme Court can go ‘ok, this is technically legal but we’re still forbidding you from doing it’ or they can let this particular thing escalate.

The destabilization of American politics and thus American society would of course have immense global consequences.

I do have to wonder: how do Europeans react to news like this? If I'm, say, Emmanuelle Macron, then I'm probably gonna be in a mild panic every time news like this breaks, because I'm going to try and pull every political lever in reach to prepare my country for the possibility of the Pax Americana going poof by the middle of 2025.

Not sure whether your question was only refering to European politicians, but I tried in vain to explain to an American I was drinking with the other night that democracies don't put election losers in jail, because that disincentivises all politicians from respecting the results of future elections.

She didn't seem to buy it though. In her view, Trump will go to jail because his actions were treason and everything will go back to normal with no long term consequences.

democracies don't put election losers in jail, because that disincentivises all politicians from respecting the results of future elections.

The trouble we've realized with this ideal is that it also presumes that politicians refrain from doing obviously blatantly illegal things.

In my opinion, this was first realized with respect to Hillary, who faced effectively no consequences from breaking a bunch of laws (besides whatever effect it had on her losing the election). In her case, it was terrible for democracy for her to face any serious legal consequences.

I'm not about to claim Trump has perfectly abided by the law either. It's rather academic though exactly which laws he may or may not have broken and whether anything he did is or is not worse than what Hillary and other prominent Democrats have done. But it sure smells bad that he gets aggressively prosecuted all over the nation, taken off of ballots, etc, and nothing at all happens to any Democrats.

Can you clarify for me, is France a democracy? Because they convicted Sarkozy of corruption after he lost.

I mean, the EU doesn't really have to fear invasion absent the Pax; it's got more-than-sufficient firepower to stop Russia even on its own, and France has nukes. It's more "the world economy is now tits-up" that they've got to worry about.

This is in contrast to, for instance, Taiwan.

The EU does not have sufficient conventional firepower to stop Russia on its own, although Russia is probably capable of stopping Russia and France does have nukes(and Germany at least can get them before the Russian troops get through Poland).

The global economy might go tits up, but it also might strengthen the euro as people look for alternatives to the dollar, and IIRC European goods are the only real substitute for American ones. It’s not wildly implausible that after some temporary pain Europe winds up slightly better off- especially if the euro appreciates.

The bigger problem is shipping lanes, but A) France and Britain have large navies and can head up a coalition on their own and B) China wants to be able to ship goods to and from Europe and has motives to keep shipping lanes clear.

although Russia is probably capable of stopping Russia

I think you made some sort of error here.

Nope, I'm referring to Russia's corruption and incompetence. A competently run Russia which prioritizes military capabilities over brown-nosing and graft would've already steamrolled Ukraine and be posing a serious threat to the European powers of NATO. Russia as it actually exists wouldn't be a real threat to NATO even with US withdrawal.

Ah, thanks for clarifying.

Macron is probably mildly heartened. The most plausible path to e.g. the US withdrawing from NATO is that Trump wins and withdraws from NATO.

If there's a civil war, the USA might not formally withdraw from NATO but its power projection is going to take a huge hit.

I listen to news commentary talk radio every day. This story has dominated coverage. Also front page articles in American newspapers. It's the big deal this week.

After the American Civil War they passed a Constitutional ammendment banning former-Confederates who also were former civil officers or military officers. These people swore oaths to defend the Constitution and the Republic and then betrayed those oaths.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Colorado state court says Trump is ineligible based on this. He's an insurrectionist. And that ammendment mentions nothing about needing a conviction. So they've ordered him removed from the state primary ballots, which will be printed in a few days. The Supreme Court needs to rush to block this or Trump's won't be on the primary ballot. And given this logic to keep him off the primary, surely they'd have to keep him off of the general election ballot. Which is actually a callback to states pre-Civil War not putting Lincoln on the ballot. Just don't even pretend anyone is allowed to vote for your opponents.

Plaintiffs in at least seven states have tried to get state courts to remove Trump from the ballot using this reasoning. They finally found a venue willing to do it. Just barely, the judges that ruled on this are all Democratic appointees and even they only barely majority support this. So it is not that popular yet, unless the people pushing for it can convice more states.

I would say removing a candidate from the ballot like this is not inside baseball and is actually a rather big deal. We already have Republicans threatening to remove Biden from ballots in retaliation. Could be idle threats. Could be a bad path for our nation to go down. Also going to wound the Supreme Court's credibility among half the nation when they rule on this. This is corrosive.

Colorado state court says Trump is ineligible based on this. He's an insurrectionist. And that ammendment mentions nothing about needing a conviction.

There are a number of issues there, most notably that Trump (uniquely among Presidents for decades if not centuries) has never been a member of Congress, an officer of the US, a member of any state legislature, or an executive or judicial officer of any state.

Agreed. The 14th Ammendment is way too verbose and overspecifies who counts. By my reading Trump doesn't.

I suppose circa the late 1860s it was perfectly obvious who was a former insurrectionist and former officer, representative or appointee. So slightly overly specific language wasn't a problem.

I also suppose insurrection was so clear to them in its magnitude and unambiguous nature that Trump didn't do anything that counts. He didn't wage literal war against America. His tweeting to stay peaceful and go home don't count.

The thread is intended as a follow-up to this comment. America-centric for sure but it seems pretty important. Donald Trump, a leading candidate for one of the two major political parties has been declared ineligible for the presidency because, according to the supreme court of Colorado, he engaged in an insurrection against the US government.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats