Quite Right

The very idea was an outrage.

Donald Trump was wrongly removed from Colorado’s primary ballot last year, the US supreme court has ruled.

The court’s significant decision overturns a 4-3 ruling from the Colorado supreme court that said the former president could not run because he had engaged in insurrection during the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The Colorado decision was a novel interpretation of section 3 of the 14th amendment, which bars insurrectionists from holding office.

The court has made the right decision here. The Colorado one was clearly a political decision. As for Trump engaging in insurrection that’s just not supported by any evidence whatsoever. See, also, Russian interference in 2017. The idea that you can exclude a candidate from the ballot paper is an appalling overreach by the Colorado court.

9 Comments

  1. Not unusual for Democrats to try keeping a republican nominee they fear off the ballot paper – they did it in 1860 against Abe Lincoln. Following election was marred by fraudulent mail-in votes – again aimed at defeating Abe.
    Hope the outcome is less devastating for America this time round.

  2. Following election was marred by fraudulent mail-in votes

    For a second there I thought you were talking about 2020, not 1860. There truly is nothing new under the sun, is there.

  3. The Donald has not been charged with insurrection, let alone convicted of it.

    And as for inciting his supporters on January 6th 2021, during his speech on January 6th, he told the people listening (at least a couple of times) to march peacefully to the Capitol to make their voices heard. And when things kicked off, he urged people to be peaceful and to go home. Anyone who thinks telling people to be peaceful is ‘incitement’ must be a lefty moron.

    • I’ve noticed that, in the mind of the left winger, everything is either the reverse, or at least different from what it really is. The Covid jab was a vaccine. Illegal immigrants are refugees. Telling supporters to protest peacefully is incitement. CO2 affects the climate. Electric cars are good for the environment. Air quality is getting worse. Men and women are interchangeable. Eating the wrong food is highly dangerous. Their whole worldview is based on fantasies.

  4. It is fundamentally wrong for any citizen to be denied the opportunity to stand for election. Whether they are a nutcase, a mass-murderer, a paedophile or whatever, it’s up to the voters then to decide who they want as their representative in a free choice from an open list of candidates. If the voters choose ‘wrongly’, then the system has to accommodate it, that’s democracy – hence George Galloway, Brexit etc.
    To prevent anyone standing is the act of a banana republic or a totalitarian regime – but then America these days is starting to whiff a bit banana-ish.

  5. I agree about nutcases since, like beauty, the are in the eye of the beholder. However, personally I am rather in favour of keeping convicted mass-murderers and paedophiles off the ballot paper. I note that, grotesquely, you think Brexit was a ‘wrong’ decision on a level with voting for George Galloway.

    • Sorry to confuse, I put ‘wrongly’ thus in order to identify it as a perception, in the way that the establishment perceived the Brexit result as being ‘wrong’ although the majority of those voting clearly didn’t. For clarity, I didn’t vote for George Galloway.

  6. BTW the SCOTUS decision was unanimous (ie Democrat-appointed judges also threw out the Colorado court ruling).

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