3 | POSTED BY ET_AL

So our constitution is worthless and institutions impotent.

Great.

I was constantly reassured that those institutions were the guardrail against authoritarianism in our great Republic.

Were those people full of s$&# or were they saying it to convince themselves?

Which begs the question, who decides? A judge, a jury, a secretary of state, a political party, citizens, a legislature? Fifty different times? Congress, once? That's the novelty of this issue. No one knows the answer.

#8 | POSTED BY ET_AL

No offense, but the legal profession is a worthless joke.

From the language you quoted, who decides? I provided a list of potential actors at #8, wanna venture an opinion?

#19 | POSTED BY ET_AL

Sooooo...basically, the judiciary, when it comes to protecting our democratic institutions, is a bunch of overly paid, overly educated nincompoops pointing their fingers at everyone else hoping somebody, ANYBODY will actually do something?

Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds and how useless that makes them?

What good is any of them or this country itself if something as critical as protecting its core tenants of its existence isn't capable of being decided by the very people supposedly educated and trained to do so?

It's not more complicated than that

It is when you're a lawyer who's primary training is to maximize billable hours.

The legal system is in one sense doing its job by not overstepping its authority where none arguably exists.

They have no explicit authority to enforce the Constitution of the United States? Odd.

I still think Trump is such an extraordinary case that extraordinary measures are required in response to him.

Extraordinary only in that it's a first.

But it's a first only in details and a first whose coming was telegraphed long before it occurred and, therefore, is a first with well documented behind the scenes actions and intentions.

I would find the timidity of the judiciary to be more understandable under conditions where it happened out of the blue with smarter actions less well documented. But with this? We know their entire god damn plan.

Actually the left is saying that their candidate is worthless and impotent when they need to prevent their opponent from running against him.

#38 | POSTED BY FISHPAW

Nobody wants your fox news idiocy, dumba*( explanations, moron.

That you're an unAmerican POS who'll vote for Trump again says a lot about you.

When nothing is written down to provide authority to either party there should be reluctance to act, regardless of how frustrating that might be for the public.

#32 | POSTED BY JOE

Not when action is required for the protection of the Republic.

This isn't some interstate commerce spat brought on by new tech and, therefore, needs legal precedence.

Sorry but it's his interpretation of the law. Try appealing it to the supreme court.

#41 | POSTED BY FISHPAW

If you have to resort to BS relativism you've already lost.

A judge should know the extent of their power before they lift the gavel.

Or at least have the fortitude to make an objective assessment of the scale of the question.

Let's be honest with ourselves, most of the decisions we jabber about here aren't anywhere near the enormity of scale of this one.

Did Dobbs or Hobby Lobby or Citizen's United suck? Yes. Of course.

Did any of those have the possibility of leading to, in the near future (I'll grant CU is a slow burning existential threat that's part of the current problem) a significant loss of an ability to continue to fight on the issue? Significant damage to our Constitution and democratic institutions?

No, they didn't. Abortion, religious rights and (less so) political funding don't even begin to approach the enormity of letting an explicit authoritarian who's already attempted to subvert a legal, certified election for their own benefit run again in direct contradiction to an amendment written the last time there was a major push to subvert the United States.

To say we're collectively missing the forest for the trees is a massive understatement.

The problem with setting precedent on a question of this magnitude is that it can and will be stretched in bad faith to bar candidates from the ballot for less consequential conduct.

Would you tell an ER doc not to save your life because you might break a bone later?

Further litigation would be a sign of life.

I can see why some judges would rather pray that Trump dies or loses rather than resolve this issue on the merits. I really don't need to see some Trump judge ban a leftist from the ballot in 2028 because they participated in a protest at the White House that turned violent or something like that.

#48 | POSTED BY JOE

I dunno. I'd rather our Republic live to see a 2028 election.

And you seriously think that's in jeopardy?

#56 | POSTED BY EBERLY

If there's no repercussions for Trump and, worse, he's rewarded with office again?

Absolutely.

Especially in light of articles like this that make it quite clear our institutions don't seem to be up to the task of fending off an aggressive, prolonged attempt to kill our process.

I don't see that as comparable. Abuse of a process like this is just as toxic to democracy as having Trump be President. In fact; abuse of it might guarantee that to be the case, or could help someone even worse than Trump.

Fine, let me amend my comparison.

If you get your arm cut off in a car accident, do you prevent a tourniquet being placed because you might be beheaded in a later accident? Or do you save your life and do everything you can afterwards to prevent getting beheaded in a future accident?

Letting a long-term hypothetical that's dependent on the current problem not existing or being solved prevent action now is dumb.

i just don't think it's as clear-cut or without danger that you guys do.

#54 | POSTED BY JOE

I'm not disagreeing with you on the future dangers. One can't, really, when you consider the fact that the group building a lot of the framework for the GOP's authoritarian push should they win in 2024 warns against the very same thing.

They're not going into this treating it like a gamble. They're going to ensure that that outcome CAN'T come to fruition using the authoritarian tools put into place.

That's correct except for 1 part...., it's not a possibility....it's a lock. With the camp here....it's a lock.

#61 | POSTED BY EBERLY

At this point it's a valid assumption based on a decades long pattern.

When and if a GOP POTUS gets elected who isn't worse than the last...and people still act like they're the worst thing since unsliced bread...then you'll have a point.

Still a bad analogy. Abuse of precedent barring a candidate from office would stem directly from the decision you seek here. It wouldn't be some random later incident; it would be a direct result.

#65 | POSTED BY JOE

I'm sorry, but you're overthinking it.

If you don't prevent a mortal wound now, your future concerns are moot. Period. The end.

If the judiciary continues to sit on its hands because it's afraid of precedence (that needs to be set BTW, this isn't out of left field) and allows an authoritarian take over then they've basically forfeited the game because they're spineless idiots.

the entire republican field is worse than Trump.

The field is only as good as the base. We constantly act as if the candidates and their likelihood of being elected is a variable in a vacuum. It's not. The candidates and the base are a package deal that have to be considered together.

If you want to argue (fairly) that a second Trump administration wouldn't be a mortal wound but instead just a highly damaging one, you still run into the problem of thinking today's problem would be tomorrow's.

Things could change for the worse in such a dramatic fashion that that concern wouldn't be valid anyway.

It's that Trump will be on the ballot. It's not really that the process of law has failed you.
It's that Trump might win.
#73 | POSTED BY EBERLY

There isn't a disconnect between the two.

The process of law IS failing us. That failure is opening up the possibility of Trump and his increasingly radical band of sycophants regaining possession of the most powerful office on earth.

The cause and effect is also a package.