This is going to be fascinating. The Constitution is clear, the Colorado decision is copiously documented. If #SCOTUS supports Trump, the literal lawlessness of the decision will make them ripe for radical reform. If they go against Trump, the right will never forgive them. So who will they throw under the bus? Themselves or Trump? My guess: they will dump Trump b/c they no longer really need him to pursue the agenda they are on. Grab your popcorn & stay tuned.
@sjgenco If the Constitution was clear then there wouldn't be so many people arguing back and forth making different claims about its meaning.
No, the Constitution is not clear.
And it begs the question to claim it is for the sake of confirming one's biases, and it does society no good to set that fight up like that.
@volkris I disagree. What you call 'arguing back and forth' is simply the familiar GOP strategy of filling the zone with shit to distract from the fact the Constitution is clear. Sorry, just my opinion based on 8 years of watching the GOP use this strategy again and again to defend the indefensible: a serial criminal and sociopath who hates America and loves Putin.
@sjgenco It has nothing to do with the GOP, though.
These matters of constitutional interpretation are not new. These are questions that have been looming for decades with different experts and authorities debating the meanings because they were unclear, heck, the authorities were begging for clarity specifically to head off a moment like this when we do need to know what the rules are.
The GOP didn't invent this.
Anybody nerdy enough to be plugged into the academic debates about this sort of thing would have been very familiar with these arguments for quite a while, long before Republicans discovered them.
@volkris One group that was nerdy enough to look into the academic debates was the Colorado Supreme Court. Please reread their analysis starting on p.14. It sure looks like they managed to work their way thru any "debates" to come to a solid conclusion. This is Trump's problem: the Constitution is TOO clear, not unclear. https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/Supreme_Court/Opinions/2023/23SA300.pdf
@sjgenco No they begged a bunch of questions, asserting as fact a bunch of assumptions that are extremely debatable.
So yeah, you're kind of begging the question there.
CO needed to produce a ruling, and it did, but it wasn't a particularly well justified argument, and they knew it as they knew this was going to be subject to higher court review.
It doesn't get us anywhere to just deny the open question though.
@volkris Thanks for raising the discussion. I understand your view. Hope you agree it is still going to be very interesting to see how SCOTUS reasons this one out.