1. I think the ruling a Bad Thing (but not necessarily a bad ruling) because I think "needs a criminal conviction" is the appropriate standard to use in terms of making Section 3 of the 14th Amendment outside of the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. The two non-Confederate examples were both convicted of crimes,[1] and I think that's necessary to avoid easy-to-envision partisan abuses.[2]
2. At this point I am expecting 9-0 from SCOTUS overturning the CO Supreme Court decision. Ruling Trump ineligible nationally is something I can't imagine there being 5 votes for, or even 3, and setting up a standard where every state decides for itself sounds like it's asking for all kinds of trouble, most especially the aforementioned partisan abuses.
[1] Though Berger's conviction was ridiculous.
[2] E.g., "Joe Biden should be kept of the ballot because he's giving aid and comfort to America's enemies by opening the border!"
If Hillary Clinton was historically awful at this, there’s nothing to worry about.
I remember well common defenses that Clinton supporters (such as myself) offered of her during the election.
Things like, "Oh, sure, she has high unfavorability but that's all just because everybody knows her and has priced in years of partisan attacks, so it's not a real liability. She's already at her floor," and, "It's really obvious that all these scandals are just partisan nonsense, so they won't move any voters."
Well, “putting it up for a vote” ain’t on the table.
Yes, that is, in fact, a feature of our Constitutional order, which provides multiple mechanisms to prevent people who try to overthrow democracy from being (re-)elected, including Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
You like game theory, so it should be obvious why.
It’s that, once again, it’s playing out that “the establishment” hates Trump. And Trump can say “I hate the establishment! And they hate me! Who are you going to support!”
Last time they supported the establishment. Right?
No, I'm not saying, "Everything is fine and there's nothing to worry about."
I'm saying, "This is not a convincing mechanism for questions about Trump's involvement in the Jan 6 insurrection to play in his favor politically."
Like this is actually, from that perspective, a tit-for-tat defection against repeated defections on the part of Trump and the GOP against liberal democracy.
On those grounds, I think it's totally fine, and really don't get why JB is complaining about it in these terms.
My worry (which I think mirror's North's) is that it places a lot of pressure on state courts and state election laws that they were not really built to handle, and that this is actually a choice of battlefield that favors the GOP. I'm actually surprised we haven't seen a torrent of challenges to Biden's eligibility on the grounds that he's, say, providing aid and comfort to enemies of the United States by opening the border, and am not serenely confident that when that happens, there won't be state courts ruling against him.
Worse, while state courts that do rule against him are unlikely to tip the election, any precedent that we get stuck with here also applies to Congressional and state elections, where there aren't any Blue or Purple state EVs to save us.
SCOTUS basically can't not rule on this, and if they let it stand, I'm not sure how they let it stand without opening the door for those shenanigans, nor do I trust anyone to the right of Roberts (which is still a majority) to want to keep the door on those shenanigans closed.
How do you think we should properly demonstrate that we care about democracy when one of the major candidates for office has already tried to overthrow it once?
But even if you assume the alternative scenario, and think the election is gonna hinge on this, I have no idea why you'd also just assume it's good for Trump.
For everybody who's complaining about how CO Supreme Court decision is anti-democratic and disrespects the will of the voters, I've got some bad news about Donald Trump.
How did you get from, "The tide of death threats being addressed to the judges who ruled against Trump are false flags!" to, "Nothing bad will follow from this?"
Exactly. It was extremely unfair of the CO Supreme Court to decide Trump was engaged in the Jan 6 insurrection that was perpetrated by Antifa crisis actors who were entrapped by the FBI!
Do you think that the on the fence voter in, say, Georgia or Michigan, is going to be thinking about this the day they are casting their vote in November?
Even if they are, it's not entirely obvious to me it will be an unmixed blessing for him.
I mean, I'm not saying I have any deep insights into the mindset of the hypothetical future Michigan swing voter, but I'm not sure making the Jan 6 insurrection the pivotal issue of the election is necessarily gonna play out all that well for Team Trump.
Breakthrough infections are common in a lot of vaccines, and vaccine trials (at least for entirely novel classes of vaccine, where you don't have an existing vaccine to compare against) routinely seek to show a reduction in disease incidence and/or severity over placebo.
Which is unfortunate because its evidence of a real constitutional breakdown.
Very definitely. I've been slowly making my way through the CO court ruling and it makes sense to the best of my ability to tell.
But I'm really worried it will open up space for much less defensible disqualification, not because the CO Supreme Court is making mistakes about the laws in question, but because the laws in question are being applied in domains they were never meant to handle, and only have to handle them now because of upstream failures, of which the biggest is definitely Congress not removing Trump post 1/6.
The difference is that Muslim communal rights exist because of their own power, rather than dependence on a gift from others, and is seen as more natural.
You realize you've moved the goal posts here, right?
You went from "Muslim, Palestinian, LGBT, etc." to just "Muslim".
LGBT people obviously don't have anything like the kind of communal identity you're describing, and it's unclear how they even could. Going through obvious elements of "etc." and you see many more counter-examples.
Also, your suggestion that there is a "Muslim world" that functions as you describe is clearly false. The actual Muslim world contains states that are currently at war with each other, deep (and often bloody) sectarian divisions, and equally deep (and often bloody) ethnic divisions.
Hell, if the Muslim world worked the way you describe, most Palestinian refugees would have been absorbed into neighboring countries in much the way that Mizrahi Jews, Russian Jews, etc. were welcomed to Israel.
Jews aren’t treated as one international community but a bunch of divided communities and God help us if we demonstrate “double loyalties” but If a Muslim in Morocco wants to tell a Jewish neighbor that they feel more kinship with a Muslim in Indonesia because they are Muslim and the Jews are not than so be it.
Dude, have you noticed anything that the Right has said about Muslims in the US or Europe in the last couple decades?
I was saying above that presenting diverse perspectives in the Opinion section to challenge readers' preconceptions is a branding choice, and one that is very tough to get right, and that Schmitz piece is a great example of why.
It does indeed present two very common anti-anti-Trump arguments: voters like that Trump actual stated policy positions differ from doctrinaire conservatism, and that he is so comprehensively full of sh!t that voters needn't worry about his rhetorical commitment to fascism.
This is already self-contradictory argument really picks up speed when you get to the conclusion--that because voters believe he isn't an authoritarian who threatens democracy on account of him being so full of sh!t--he isn't actually an authoritarian threat to democracy.
I'm trying to imagine what kind of reader would have their preconceived notions about Trump challenged by this self-refuting slop, and I can only come up with literal infants: born yesterday and lacking object permanence.
That being said, the NYT’s behavior doesn’t remotement resemble some kind of left wing version of Fox News.
Yeah.
Also, like, they've blown some stories in various ways because of various biases and institutional foibles over the years, including some huge ones (@in-md already mentioned Iraq but it deserves mentioning again), but the thing we're mostly talking about here is the Opinion page, which, like, that is supposed to be biased.
I thing having the Times become the Team Blue version of the New York Post or Washington Times would be a terrible outcome. But having them become the Team Blue version of the Wall Street Journal would be extremely fine.
Seriously, a commitment to getting stories correct is a critical component of a journalistic enterprise's quality.
A commitment to having a diverse range of views that challenge readers' preconceptions in the Opinion section is a branding choice, and not necessarily a great one, especially since it's so hard to actually do that in a worthwhile way.
Of course even if SCOTUS says there either needs to be a statute passed by Congress or a conviction it would not necessarily be good news for Trump, as long as he has criminal cases against him.
It might not be great news for Trump, but it would be good news for everybody else.
FWIW, I do think we can trust SCOTUS to save us on this one, given that this is one of those rare times where basic sanity and arrant Republican hackishness cut in the same direction.
Nothing has ever stopped Georgia or Alabama from kicking Biden off the ballot, or for a sitting Republican Vice President to simply throw out entire state’s slates of electors, or for state secretaries of state to summarily disqualify entire precincts of ballots.
Yeah, nothing has stopped them except that no one really thought that you could (or should) do this.
Just looking at the way the two parties are structured, and the ways they govern states, I would be very hesitant to throw open the, "Hey, you can keep people from holding office based on contestable theories that they gave aid and comfort to the enemies of the US!" door for the GOP to just waltz on through.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “A Deep Dive Into the Trump Ballot Ban”
A couple things:
1. I think the ruling a Bad Thing (but not necessarily a bad ruling) because I think "needs a criminal conviction" is the appropriate standard to use in terms of making Section 3 of the 14th Amendment outside of the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. The two non-Confederate examples were both convicted of crimes,[1] and I think that's necessary to avoid easy-to-envision partisan abuses.[2]
2. At this point I am expecting 9-0 from SCOTUS overturning the CO Supreme Court decision. Ruling Trump ineligible nationally is something I can't imagine there being 5 votes for, or even 3, and setting up a standard where every state decides for itself sounds like it's asking for all kinds of trouble, most especially the aforementioned partisan abuses.
[1] Though Berger's conviction was ridiculous.
[2] E.g., "Joe Biden should be kept of the ballot because he's giving aid and comfort to America's enemies by opening the border!"
On “Colorado Supreme Court Disqualifies Trump From 2024 Primary Ballot”
If Hillary Clinton was historically awful at this, there’s nothing to worry about.
I remember well common defenses that Clinton supporters (such as myself) offered of her during the election.
Things like, "Oh, sure, she has high unfavorability but that's all just because everybody knows her and has priced in years of partisan attacks, so it's not a real liability. She's already at her floor," and, "It's really obvious that all these scandals are just partisan nonsense, so they won't move any voters."
How'd that work out for us?
"
Well, “putting it up for a vote” ain’t on the table.
Yes, that is, in fact, a feature of our Constitutional order, which provides multiple mechanisms to prevent people who try to overthrow democracy from being (re-)elected, including Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
You like game theory, so it should be obvious why.
"
It’s that, once again, it’s playing out that “the establishment” hates Trump. And Trump can say “I hate the establishment! And they hate me! Who are you going to support!”
Last time they supported the establishment. Right?
No, I'm not saying, "Everything is fine and there's nothing to worry about."
I'm saying, "This is not a convincing mechanism for questions about Trump's involvement in the Jan 6 insurrection to play in his favor politically."
"
Like this is actually, from that perspective, a tit-for-tat defection against repeated defections on the part of Trump and the GOP against liberal democracy.
On those grounds, I think it's totally fine, and really don't get why JB is complaining about it in these terms.
My worry (which I think mirror's North's) is that it places a lot of pressure on state courts and state election laws that they were not really built to handle, and that this is actually a choice of battlefield that favors the GOP. I'm actually surprised we haven't seen a torrent of challenges to Biden's eligibility on the grounds that he's, say, providing aid and comfort to enemies of the United States by opening the border, and am not serenely confident that when that happens, there won't be state courts ruling against him.
Worse, while state courts that do rule against him are unlikely to tip the election, any precedent that we get stuck with here also applies to Congressional and state elections, where there aren't any Blue or Purple state EVs to save us.
SCOTUS basically can't not rule on this, and if they let it stand, I'm not sure how they let it stand without opening the door for those shenanigans, nor do I trust anyone to the right of Roberts (which is still a majority) to want to keep the door on those shenanigans closed.
"
How do you think we should properly demonstrate that we care about democracy when one of the major candidates for office has already tried to overthrow it once?
"
Yeah, agreed, that's way more likely.
But even if you assume the alternative scenario, and think the election is gonna hinge on this, I have no idea why you'd also just assume it's good for Trump.
"
For everybody who's complaining about how CO Supreme Court decision is anti-democratic and disrespects the will of the voters, I've got some bad news about Donald Trump.
"
At least one of our side's extremists isn't on track to be our party's Presidential nominee.
Again.
"
How did you get from, "The tide of death threats being addressed to the judges who ruled against Trump are false flags!" to, "Nothing bad will follow from this?"
"
Exactly. It was extremely unfair of the CO Supreme Court to decide Trump was engaged in the Jan 6 insurrection that was perpetrated by Antifa crisis actors who were entrapped by the FBI!
Wait, what?
"
Do you think that the on the fence voter in, say, Georgia or Michigan, is going to be thinking about this the day they are casting their vote in November?
Even if they are, it's not entirely obvious to me it will be an unmixed blessing for him.
I mean, I'm not saying I have any deep insights into the mindset of the hypothetical future Michigan swing voter, but I'm not sure making the Jan 6 insurrection the pivotal issue of the election is necessarily gonna play out all that well for Team Trump.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/18/2023”
Breakthrough infections are common in a lot of vaccines, and vaccine trials (at least for entirely novel classes of vaccine, where you don't have an existing vaccine to compare against) routinely seek to show a reduction in disease incidence and/or severity over placebo.
"
They understood a Constitutional crisis, but not necessarily this Constitutional crisis.
"
Which is unfortunate because its evidence of a real constitutional breakdown.
Very definitely. I've been slowly making my way through the CO court ruling and it makes sense to the best of my ability to tell.
But I'm really worried it will open up space for much less defensible disqualification, not because the CO Supreme Court is making mistakes about the laws in question, but because the laws in question are being applied in domains they were never meant to handle, and only have to handle them now because of upstream failures, of which the biggest is definitely Congress not removing Trump post 1/6.
On “What is Israel’s Endgame in Gaza?”
The difference is that Muslim communal rights exist because of their own power, rather than dependence on a gift from others, and is seen as more natural.
You realize you've moved the goal posts here, right?
You went from "Muslim, Palestinian, LGBT, etc." to just "Muslim".
LGBT people obviously don't have anything like the kind of communal identity you're describing, and it's unclear how they even could. Going through obvious elements of "etc." and you see many more counter-examples.
Also, your suggestion that there is a "Muslim world" that functions as you describe is clearly false. The actual Muslim world contains states that are currently at war with each other, deep (and often bloody) sectarian divisions, and equally deep (and often bloody) ethnic divisions.
Hell, if the Muslim world worked the way you describe, most Palestinian refugees would have been absorbed into neighboring countries in much the way that Mizrahi Jews, Russian Jews, etc. were welcomed to Israel.
Jews aren’t treated as one international community but a bunch of divided communities and God help us if we demonstrate “double loyalties” but If a Muslim in Morocco wants to tell a Jewish neighbor that they feel more kinship with a Muslim in Indonesia because they are Muslim and the Jews are not than so be it.
Dude, have you noticed anything that the Right has said about Muslims in the US or Europe in the last couple decades?
Like, at all?
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/18/2023”
Crime goes up, crime goes down. You can't explain that.
On “Colorado Supreme Court Disqualifies Trump From 2024 Primary Ballot”
I'm guessing it goes down 9-0.
The hacks will hate it for obvious reasons, and the non-hacks will recognize that it opens a can of rabid zombie worms.
"
CO GOP to CO Supreme Court: "Hold my beer!"
"
+1
Generally convinced this ruling will be a disaster if it stands, but it won't stand, so we're probably fine.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/11/2023”
I was saying above that presenting diverse perspectives in the Opinion section to challenge readers' preconceptions is a branding choice, and one that is very tough to get right, and that Schmitz piece is a great example of why.
It does indeed present two very common anti-anti-Trump arguments: voters like that Trump actual stated policy positions differ from doctrinaire conservatism, and that he is so comprehensively full of sh!t that voters needn't worry about his rhetorical commitment to fascism.
This is already self-contradictory argument really picks up speed when you get to the conclusion--that because voters believe he isn't an authoritarian who threatens democracy on account of him being so full of sh!t--he isn't actually an authoritarian threat to democracy.
I'm trying to imagine what kind of reader would have their preconceived notions about Trump challenged by this self-refuting slop, and I can only come up with literal infants: born yesterday and lacking object permanence.
"
That being said, the NYT’s behavior doesn’t remotement resemble some kind of left wing version of Fox News.
Yeah.
Also, like, they've blown some stories in various ways because of various biases and institutional foibles over the years, including some huge ones (@in-md already mentioned Iraq but it deserves mentioning again), but the thing we're mostly talking about here is the Opinion page, which, like, that is supposed to be biased.
I thing having the Times become the Team Blue version of the New York Post or Washington Times would be a terrible outcome. But having them become the Team Blue version of the Wall Street Journal would be extremely fine.
Seriously, a commitment to getting stories correct is a critical component of a journalistic enterprise's quality.
A commitment to having a diverse range of views that challenge readers' preconceptions in the Opinion section is a branding choice, and not necessarily a great one, especially since it's so hard to actually do that in a worthwhile way.
On “What is Israel’s Endgame in Gaza?”
Yeah.
I'm probably almost as badly on tilt here as Lee is, I'm just tilting in a different direction
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/18/2023”
Of course even if SCOTUS says there either needs to be a statute passed by Congress or a conviction it would not necessarily be good news for Trump, as long as he has criminal cases against him.
It might not be great news for Trump, but it would be good news for everybody else.
FWIW, I do think we can trust SCOTUS to save us on this one, given that this is one of those rare times where basic sanity and arrant Republican hackishness cut in the same direction.
"
Nothing has ever stopped Georgia or Alabama from kicking Biden off the ballot, or for a sitting Republican Vice President to simply throw out entire state’s slates of electors, or for state secretaries of state to summarily disqualify entire precincts of ballots.
Yeah, nothing has stopped them except that no one really thought that you could (or should) do this.
Just looking at the way the two parties are structured, and the ways they govern states, I would be very hesitant to throw open the, "Hey, you can keep people from holding office based on contestable theories that they gave aid and comfort to the enemies of the US!" door for the GOP to just waltz on through.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.