Monday, January 20, 2025

A tragic day.

Donald Trump will be sworn in as President of the United States today.

It can be argued, although it will not be, and in fact this is mostly just a mental exercise, that the action will be null, void, and of no effect and that for the first time in its history, by the end of the day, the United States will not have President.

This is why:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Oh, I know, you're thinking, if you read this late in the day; "I saw Chief Justice John Roberts swear Donald J. Trump in as President".  If you are reading it early, and are inclined to watch, you will see that occur.

Yes, he did, or will.

But, by the same token, John Roberts could have gone down to Hooters with the guys from the court, and rather than leave a tip, have sworn in a waitress as President of the United States.

Here's the thing.  Anyone can take the oath, the Constitution doesn't allow an insurrectionist to be President, unless 2/3s of Congress lifts the disability, and Trump is an insurrectionist.  He can't be President, and therefore, the oath will have no effect.  It will be null and void, ab initio.  

By the same token, the Hooters waitress might be 18 years old and a Ukrainian immigrant.  Swearing her in, won't make her the chief executive.

Trump is the President Elect going into this morning.  He did win the electoral vote and the popular vote.  Nonetheless, he might still be President Elect tomorrow morning, if this reading of the 14th Amendment is correct. Biden isn't President either. His term of office ended.

And J. D. Vance won't be President, he hasn't take the oath.

Now, I know that you may be thinking "but no court had declared him to be an insurrectionist". 

And indeed, while the Special Prosecutor apparently considered charging him with an insurrection related offense, he didn't.

But one court did. A court in Colorado did just that.  The larger fact of the matter is that the Constitution is drafted so that it just doesn't matter.  The 14th Amendment is drafted with the presumption that people know who is, or isn't, an insurrectionist.  After the Civil War, the US didn't put all the Southern traitors on trial. It did lift the ban on quite a few of them, however.

Having said that, in spite of their horrific act in rebelling against the Untied States in order to preserve racist human bondage, almost all of those who served the Southern cause had enough integrity to admit it and, if they chose to resume public life, to come forward and take an oath of loyalty.

This provision, accordingly, works differently than most other such matters.  Like setting the age to be President, it just sets that insurrectionist can't be President.  If there's any doubt that might be had, it would really be up to the supposed insurrectionist to seek a declaratory judgment that they weren't one.

Just as it would be if Justice Roberts, right before administering the oath, announced "I'd like to introduce you to Bubbles, whom I will now swear in as President".

Maybe.

In other words, Trump would have to go back into Court and seek a declaration that he isn't an insurrectionist, although it might be too late as he could be judicially estopped on that point by the ruling in Colorado.

As a result, again if this is correct, he will be just a private citizen, and it could be that everything he does in the next four years, in the unlikely event he is seen to be serving out four years, is null and void as well.

Or perhaps not.  If later challenged, the Supreme Court might say that as it wasn't raised, the validity of his actions will be allowed to stand.  There's some precedent for that.

But, we really don't know.

What we do know, under the 14th Amendment, "President Trump" refers to the past, not the present and the office is vacant.

Or not.

Maybe this is just all wrong, post Civil War history notwithstanding.  As it happened, the country was pretty forgiving following the Civil War and for the most part it just forgave the perpetrators of rebellion.

That's actually part of our current problem.  After the war, the Radical Reconstructionist wanted to treat the traitors harshly.  They were right.

It would have provided an enduring lesson on the cost of treason.  It would also have advanced civil rights in the American South, and the country at large, by a century.  

Likewise, Nixon should have been tried by a court, the failure to do so now resulting in the tragedy we are currently enduring.

And we are enduring one, and its about to get much, much, worse.

It's also remarkable how Synchronicity is rearing its head to give us a metaphysical dope slap today.

Today is Martin Luther King Day, or if you are in Wyoming and prefer, it's Wyoming Equality Day.

King was a great man.  He had his personal failings, as we all do, but it was his greatness, not his failings, that defined him.  He gave his life willingly for the cause of civil rights at a time in this country when resistance to the full civil rights for African Americans remained strong.

It's also the 80th anniversary of the final inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt, as we mark in a different thread.  Roosevelt also had his personal failings, but like his cousin Theodore, he was a "traitor to his class" in that he was a wealthy New Yorker who worked to save the the common American.  At the time of his last inauguration, he knew that he was dying and his running had essentially been a sacrifice of his final months for the nation.

In contrast we're inaugurating today a wealthy New Yorker whose used the common man to return himself to the oval office, but whose personal failings really define him.

That individual campaigned, twice, on the theme of "Make America Great Again".  That the nation has declined from greatness cannot be doubted.  Trump was part of that decline, and a symptom of it.  He's not responsible for much of it, and indeed if prior post war politicians, Republican and Democrat, had not ignored the growing pain of the Middle Class over the past fifty years, we wouldn't be here now.

But Trump isn't going to make American great again.  Indeed, his election may have broken the jar of greatness beyond all repair.  That will soon be very apparent, but will the population be willing to accept the blame?

No comments: