All posts tagged: attempted coup

The Supreme Court Is Not Up to the Challenge

The Supreme Court Is Not Up to the Challenge

Published by skeptic

The United States is in a moment of democratic crisis, and the Supreme Court has no idea what to do. Today, the Court held in Trump v. Anderson that Colorado cannot disqualify Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot as an insurrectionist, a decision that functionally dooms the existing efforts to bar Trump from the presidency under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. On its face, the ruling is straightforward. All nine justices agreed that states do not have the power to disqualify candidates for federal office. Looked at more closely, though, that seeming unanimity papers over a roiling disagreement among the justices not only about how best to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment, but also about the appropriate role for the Supreme Court in this period of political and constitutional tension. Over the past several months, a variety of voters and advocacy organizations invoked Section 3 in efforts to block states from allowing Trump onto the ballot. Once the Colorado Supreme Court found that the Colorado secretary of state had acted permissibly in finding Trump …

They Are Still With Him

They Are Still With Him

Published by skeptic

Come November of next year, Donald Trump might be elected president of the nation whose democracy he attempted to overthrow. Although it’s early, Trump is polling strongly against his successor, President Joe Biden, despite having been indicted for state and federal crimes, including a conspiracy to keep himself in power after his 2020 election loss. The indictment, filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith yesterday, offers a detailed recounting of Trump’s effort to “overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and retain power,” using as pretext claims of voter fraud that Trump knew were false—in the words of one of his advisers, “conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.” In addition to simply making unfounded allegations of electoral fraud, which is irresponsible but protected as free speech, Trump and his advisers hatched one bizarre plan after another to illegitimately seize power by overturning the election. If you’re trying to understand how, despite all of this, Trump could still be president again, you need look no further than the reactions of his primary rivals and …

Trump’s Threat to Democracy Is Now Systemic

Trump’s Threat to Democracy Is Now Systemic

Published by skeptic

The long-awaited federal indictment of Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election may be necessary to contain the threat to American democracy that he has unleashed. But it’s unlikely to be sufficient. The germ of election denialism that Trump injected into the American political system has spread so far throughout the Republican Party that it is virtually certain to survive whatever legal accountability the former president faces. With polls showing that most Republican voters still believes the election was stolen from Trump, that the January 6 riot was legitimate protest, and that Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 results did not violate the law or threaten the constitutional system, the United States faces a stark and unprecedented situation. For the first time in the nation’s modern history, the dominant faction in one of our two major parties has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to accept antidemocratic means to advance its interests. The most telling measure of that dynamic inside the GOP is that Trump remains the party’s central figure. Each time GOP voters …