Anyone else listening to the arguments before the supreme court as/re Colorado-Trump?" If so: Your thoughts?
I don't follow anything going on with respect to the Trump circus (it's just a noise or bedlam in the background that I don't bother to discern patterns in). He's not going to regain POTUS, regardless of how the tangled legal missiles and theatrical mess plays out. It will effectively be a one-man, one party race for that administrative slot. An exception might be if Biden suddenly dies in the course of campaigning, or he becomes so severely senile that he can't make any more public appearances. Where not even his technical entourage can prop him up, anymore -- with duct tape, baling wire, an earpiece constantly communicating what he's supposed to say and do -- whatever ingenuity/magic has been required so far. Taking a glance at one article about the topic (just to qualify for being on topic)... If a ruling went against Trump and snowballs into him either being declared ineligible or being removed from all or most ballots... Then that might actually be good for the Republican Party. It might vaguely resemble a contest with Haley, DeSantis, or somebody (not crippled by criminal spectacle) running against Biden, instead, in the November election. It would probably be too late, though... the result the same as the current situation where money could be saved by simply inviting Joe back, scrap the superfluous voting process. The real suspense is whether Joe can truly make it through another four years without Kamala having to make the speeches, while he stands in the background smiling or waving, the Team huddled around keeping him upright and semi-conscious. Is the president an officer of the United States?: How the Supreme Court answers that seemingly simple question may determine if former President Donald Trump can return to the White House. Is "officer of the United States" a term of art that refers in the Constitution to appointed officials, like cabinet secretaries and the leaders of sometimes obscure government agencies, as Trump's lawyers argue? Or does it mean anyone who holds a federal office, which would subject even former presidents to the anti-insurrection provision of the 14th Amendment? That’s a top issue the justices will tangle with Thursday when they hear Trump’s appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling that Trump disqualified himself by ginning up the mob that rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021..._
I didn't listen live, but the mood of the SCOTUS seems to be to strike down the removal of Trump from the ballot in Colorado, although on what grounds remains to be seen. They seem wary of a slippery-slope of allowing individual states to disqualify Trump, which could lead to tit-for-tat disqualifications, and chaos in an election cycle.
Did he win the last one? Is he some kind of Houdini? "OMG, Trump can escape anything! He's my #1 hard-core villain!" Maybe that's it. Not so much that the current spectacle is inferior in potency to the COVID one of four years ago, but it's a greater opportunity for #1 Villain or #1 Fear to demonstrate his art and prowess? Put another way: Is sitting near the broadcast device 6 hours a day listening to the equivalent of the horrors of Orson Welles' Martin invasion really necessary to overcome "complacency"? Instead, it just seems to continually increase the size of the Kryptonian "S" that that mythology has planted under dark [inverted] parallel universe Clark Kent's shirt. _
He won one out of the last two. And in the first of those elections, most democrats were saying "well, I meam, let's be real here. He's not going to win. He's a reality TV show star with a trail of bankruptcies and frauds behind him; no one in their right mind is going to vote for him." Would be wise to not repeat that mistake IMO.
Agreed. Haley could beat Biden. The worst outcome for the republicans is that Trump becomes the GOP nominee, remains on the ballot in most states - and then starts to see legal decisions against him. The diehard Trump supporters don't care, but many republicans don't want to vote for a convicted felon.
He won the one he won, in 2016. Because - as billvon points, out - the Dems all thought "He's not going to become POTUS." Until he did.
Yah, the first time he flew under the radar (to an extent). The next time the whole arsenal of the Democratic Party, the news media, social activist organizations, the entertainment industry, and academia came after him. And it's no less this time around (along with the justice system). I have confidence that the establishment will accomplish the job again. It was half-asleep during his initial foray. _
They aren't concerned about voting for somebody who has been found guilty of sexual assault, on a balance of probabilities.
Many Republican women are concerned, and many (say they) will not vote for him as a result. That doesn't mean they'll vote for Biden, and whether the "many" translates to anything meaningful in the final election result is another matter. But while the Orange One has garnered favour with the female right with his claims on the Roe v Wade overturning, he has lost some with his rape of Carroll and subsequent attitude around it. I would also question whether even those, male or female, that do vote for him "aren't concerned" about such a matter, just because they vote for him. Who one votes for does not preclude that voter from having even grave concerns about the candidate they are voting for, but if they see it as a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea then presumably they see the benefits of voting for him would outweigh the benefits of either not voting or voting against. Of course, many genuinely will have no concerns about his sexual assault, or any convictions he might rack up between now and the election, so caught up in his cult of personality as they are.
I don't think the court cases are going to have much effect unless he doesn't win the Presidency. If he doesn't win, he could end up with house arrest (or worse). I don't think (I could be wrong) a conviction will change many voters minds. They already know what he did. The MAGA core will vote for him no matter what. The other Republicans that are currently willing to vote for him (for whatever reason) will still be willing to vote for him even if convicted, IMO. They already know that he is guilty and they are still voting for him so I don't see much changing. If he is defeated it will be because more people vote for Biden. I don't think polls are going to help much with this one. It's all going to be within the margin of error. The non-MAGA Republicans will be thinking "who is going to be better on taxes and the stock market" and that's not going to be Biden. All the outrage and disbelief was "numbed out" long ago")
But there's always a distribution. There are republicans who will vote for Trump even if he is found guilty of raping a 10 year old girl and bragging about it, because "Biden's a pedophile" or some such. There are people who decided not to vote for him as soon as they heard him bragging about grabbing pussies. In between there are a lot of people who have a threshold that he hasn't exceeded - yet.
If he does get convicted, absent a self-pardon, then I'd expect some jail time, even if minimum security. "House arrest" would hardly be a punishment, so there'd be little justice in that. But maybe with the current state of the US, that's what will happen. It'd be naive to think that there would be no reaction from his voters to what is going on, and the harder he is hit in courts the worse it will get for him. By that I mean that the more he is shown to be a criminal, more will move away from him. I can't honestly see people moving toward him in such circumstance. So his supporter numbers will only drop. However, whether the drop will be significant to the overall result, time will tell. It may be that while his overall numbers drop, they will be in states he is already unlikely to win, and he retains sufficient support in the swing states to succeed.
My comment about house arrest is due to the Secret Service protection, state secrets, etc. I would suggest that it may be naive to expect that convictions would cause a reaction from his supporters given all past history.
Back to the supreme court if i may I sense that the court will rule against Colorado. I believe it was justice Sonia Maria Sotomayor who cautioned that it was unwise to allow a group of unelected officials from one state to deny the the citizens of the country the right to vote for a candidate of their choice states rights vs federalists probably a dilemma for some of the justices?
It will be 7-2 or even 8-1, I think, in striking down the Colorado decision. The issue seems to be not whether Trump is an insurrectionist or not - I'm not sure they have any appetite to make a ruling on that - but whether a state court can make that decision in isolation. I.e. I think they'll make the ruling that Congress must make the decision as to whether someone is an insurrectionist, and if so then, and only then, should the person be removed from all ballots. Since the Constitution states that there needs to be a 2/3rd majority to remove the disability (i.e. if someone is disqualified for being an insurrectionist, they can still be elected to office if 2/3rd of Congress agree), then I think they'll come up with something similar for Congress to determine that someone is an insurrectionist - i.e. 2/3rd agreement. This will then prevent, hopefully, a simple majority acting on political grounds to disqualify someone unfairly. (E.g. this current MAGA-dominated congress might look to claim Biden an insurrectionist and thus disqualify him!) Anyhoo - such a decision by SCOTUS will push the matter to Congress, and there's no hope in hell that MAGA-Congress will deem Trump an insurrectionist - so he'll be left on the ballot. Simply put, SCOTUS have no interest in interfering, and seem to want to push the matter away, but also avoid perceived chaos in allowing individual states to make determinations. That's my take on it all.
So, 2/3 vote to disqualify him and/or 2/3 to lift the disqualification. Doesn't sound like anyone thought that through... Kind of odd, considering how difficult it is to get an amendment ratified in the first place.
Well, they need to come up with something that enables someone to be declared an insurrectionist beyond doubt such that they can be disqualified. Otherwise they'd simply be stating that individual states can't make the ruling... without providing the means by which someone can be ajudged to be one sufficiently to be disqualified by all states. Which would leave the question in limbo. Which may be their intention... "heck, who knows how to do this properly, as long as we're not the ones to rock the apple-cart". 2/3 vote in Congress would at least mean it likely has to be more than just a political manoeuvre, and since the make-up of Congress changes, one year they could be deemed an insurrectionist and disqualified, and then 4 years later have that disqualification be removed etc. But let's see what they come up with.
