Lex Anteinternet: The 2024 Election, Part IX. The Biggest Danger To The World Edition.

Monday, November 20, 2023

The 2024 Election, Part IX. The Biggest Danger To The World Edition.

Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024
What his victory in America’s election would mean

The Economist

November 18, 2023.

I'm starting this a bit earlier than normal (I still had room to post on the last one), but the dawning realization that not only that it's possible that Trump might win, but rather that he will, is finally sinking in. The Economist got to this point after I did.

Democratic pundits like Robert Reich and Donna Brazile are going to keep on saying that we shouldn't worry, things will be fine. Baloney, worry, things aren't going to be fine. Joe Biden is not going to suddenly pull the rabbit out of the hat.

Nor are voters going to suddenly realize that the economy is doing well and love Biden. This vote isn't about the economy. Indeed, the fact that the economy is doing well in part provides the luxury to focus on social issues in a time of extraordinarily extreme stress.

Democrats need to move to the right, and right now. If they don't, they're going to hand this election to Trump, and we'll have four years like we've never seen before. Part of that means dumping an 80-year-old candidate that people don't like, and his highly annoying left wing running mate. And right now.

From our last edition:

Overall in the Republican race right now, the following are the serious candidates in terms of still (sort of) being contenders against Trump.
Trump.
Doug Burgum
Chris Christie
Ron DeSantis
Nikki Haley
Asa Hutchinson
Of the above, Hutchinson should drop out, as his campaign is gaining no traction and is essentially the same as Christie's. Burgum should drop out as well as his campiagn has generated little interest, mostly due to his own waffling on Trump.
GOP candidates still around that nobody is paying any attention to are:
Scott Alan Ayers
Ryan Binkley
Robert S. Carney
John Anthony Castro
Peter Jedick
Perry Johnson
Perry Johnson
Donald Kjornes
Mary Maxwell
Glenn McPeters
Glenn J. McPeters
Scott Peterson Merrell
Darius L. Mitchell
Vivek Ramaswamy
Sam Sloan
David Stuckenberg
Rachel Swift
Of these, only Ramaswamy is newsworthy, but most due to his being noisy and somewhat of a gadfly. So, in terms of real candidates, what the GOP actually has is:
Trump.
Doug Burgum
Chris Christie
Ron DeSantis
Nikki Haley
Asa Hutchinson
Vivek Ramaswamy
On the Democratic side, there are actually just about as many people running, but really only Biden and Dean Phillips are serious candidates. . . so far.

Regarding efforts to keep Trump off the ballot, the trial court in Colorado found that Trump did engage in insurrection, but that the office of the President was not included in "officers of the United States" to which the Fourteenth Amendment applies.

Some really excellent commentary on this can be found, interestingly enough on Twitter, on this feed:

Liz Cheney and Jennifer Erin Valent follow

@judgeluttig

The Colorado State District Court, Judge Sarah B. Wallace, held tonight that the former president “engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 through incitement, and that the First Amendment does not protect [his] speech." The court also held that he

7:00 PM · Nov 17, 2023

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"acted with the specific intent to disrupt the Electoral College certification of President Biden’s electoral victory through unlawful means." The court thus found as both fact and law the preconditions to the former president's disqualification under Section 3.

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But then, accepting wholesale the former president’s tortured constitutional arguments, the court held that the Presidency of the United States is not an “office under the United States” and that the former president

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was not an "officer of the United States" and did not take an oath to “support the Constitution of the United States” in 2016 when he took the presidential oath in Article II, Section 1, Clause 8, to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

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It is unfathomable as a matter of constitutional interpretation that the Presidency of the United States is not an “office under the United States.” It is even more constitutionally unfathomable, if that's possible,

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that the former president did not take an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” within the meaning of Section 3 when he took took the presidential oath “to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

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The Constitution is not a suicide pact with America's democracy. Indeed, it is the very contrary in this instance. It is plain that the entire purpose of Section 3, confirmed by its literal text,

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is to disqualify any person who, having taken an oath to support the Constitution, engages in an insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution. The former president did exactly that when he attempted to overturn the 2020 election and remain in office

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in rebellious violation of the Constitution's Executive Vesting Clause, which prescribes the four-year term of the presidency.

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November 20, 2023

In something really scary, in context, given his recent tweets, former President Trump, the GOP front-runner was filmed serving an early Thanksgiving dinner to uniformed personnel reported to be Texas National Guardsmen and "border patrol agents" who are more likely Texas law enforcement officers. Many of them stopped to have their picture taken with the former President, who now has one judge on record with an opinion that he has been an insurrectionist.

The U.S. military, although less so the National Guard, has traditionally been non-political. Indeed, up until World War Two military officers regarded it as a personal duty not to vote.

Last prior edition:

The 2024 Election, Part VIII. Speeding toward the missing bridge

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