I am less concerned with the SCOTUS ruling that a national party nominee is disqualified from a ballot in a state he'll almost certainly lose than I am with a ruling that some court in Florida or Arizona or Georgia can pull the same shit on Biden.
Very easy to see this become one more trick one-party states can pull to remove popular opponents from the ballot in close election years. And I would be very concerned if an Alito court authored an opinion in which this kind of thing was normalized.
I'm not afraid of bad faith attempts to ruin democracy as backlash from this decision because bad faith attempts to ruin democracy are coming regardless of the outcome of this particular case
I think it's important to point out that they had a riot in Florida to stop the recount. The RNC paid for it, and they bragged about using the threat of violence to stop the recount. Google Brooks Brothers riot. In the last 30 years Republicans have had more riots to try to ignore the vote than they've had popular vote winners. The end of democracy is their only chance going forward, they know it and they're open about the fact that they're trying to make it happen.
To rephrase the excellent point made: Its short sighted to think suffering no consequences for crimes will encourage the MAGA criminals to not do more bad faith crimes.
We either legitimize their actions by witholding consequences or we attempt to give them consequences and they claim their next scheme is retaliation for the consequences rather than retaliation for something entirely fabricated (ex: "stolen election" bullshit)
The constitution itself contains no designation, description, or necessary admission of the existence of such a thing as slavery, servitude, or the right of property in man. We are obliged to go out of the instrument and grope among the records of oppression, lawlessness and crime – records unmentioned, and of course unsanctioned by the constitution – to find the thing, to which it is said that the words of the constitution apply. And when we have found this thing, which the constitution dare not name, we find that the constitution has sanctioned it (if at all) only by enigmatical words, by unnecessary implication and inference, by innuendo and double entendre, and under a name that entirely fails of describing the thing.
From "No Treason, The Constitution of No Authority" by Lyndard Spooner, discussing the fundamental failures of the document when confronting the horror of the antebellum South.
And so we decide to let tyrants through so that their party doesn’t have made up and twisted precedent to try to disqualify qualified candidates? It’s not like the GOP need or care about precedent anyway. If they want to try and do it they’ll try and do it. Booting someone like trump who has done what trump has done is a legitimate implementation of the law and the right thing to do.
We don't decide. A few Ivy League JDs in robes get to decide. The decision on whether to list a particular candidate on the ballot is, inherently, undemocratic.
If they want to try and do it they’ll try and do it.
State governments don't need any more tools in the chest to decide who can and cannot appear on a ballot.
Booting someone like trump who has done what trump has done is a legitimate implementation of the law and the right thing to do.
I agree. But he's not the only one who will get booted off under this rule. We both know it.
‘This rule’ being the 14th amendment? The one in the constitution? We should just ignore it so that the bad guys don’t try to use it illegitimately when we know they will anyway?
The point is, I think, to try and falsely equivocate the two things so they appear similar enough that people won't raise too big of a fuss if Biden is removed for illegitimate reasons, because they somehow believe the same thing happened with trump.