• SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    The SCOTUS and other institutions will not save democracy.

    This bears repeating. The SCOTUS and other institutions will not save democracy.

    Institutions are corruptible. SCOTUS has been corrupted. That is where the US is.

    Only citizen action can safeguard democracy.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Yeah. People don’t seem to understand that once the fascists have stacked the highest court, it’s game over for the justice system and any semblance of due process. The rule of law is dead. They succeeded in killing it.

      Once the fascists have seized control of all 3 branches of government? No amount of voting, protesting, or peaceful demonstration is likely to improve the situation — at that point the only way to restore democracy is through armed revolution and civil war.

      • John_McMurray@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        That’s such blatant bullshit you should be ashamed. You don’t beleive in democracy. You believe that it’s war if things don’t go your way.

        • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Why so incensed? They are describing exactly what must happen to restore democracy once it has been corrupted into something else. What would you do under a fascist regime to bring about democracy, instead?

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I read recently a comment that said “The only people who think favorably about SCOTUS are people who remember the Warren Court.”

      Now I’m not that old, but I think there’s a lot of truth in that. SCOTUS got a lot of goodwill from the Warren Court for making progressive, popular, and legally sound rulings. Now people are surprised that under Roberts, the Court has returned to its more-often-than-not pro-business, pro-Christofascist, anti-everything-that-isn’t-rich-white-men leanings.

    • VinnyDaCat@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Safeguard? It’s over if you ask me. We might as well start planning out our revolution already.

  • RagingSnarkasm@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    The era of the Great Society is over. We are now entering the era of the Federalist Society.

    Bring a flashlight, it will get dark.

  • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Yeah, dangerous thing to pass though.

    If a state can choose disqualify, Texas, Florida and PA can choose to disqualify the democratic candidates on trumped up unqualified charges

    Need to be super careful with this one, it cuts both ways.

    • 4am@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      It’s not a new law, it’s in the constitution. He cannot hold office, and there’s no need for a conviction. He participated.

      • morphballganon@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        You are absolutely correct. However, we cannot trust republicans to not abuse precedent where one exists.

      • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        They didn’t say that it’s not in the Constitution they said the states can’t enforce it.

        If we want to enforce it as a country it should come from Congress. If you give the states leeway to take people off the ballot, States can do stupid things I agree he deserves to be off the ballot but I do not love giving swing states that tool.

        • mPony@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          it should come from Congress

          It seems people might not believe that Congress would abide by the constitution, seeing as last time around a whole bunch of them straight-up voted to not abide by the election results.

        • Natanael@slrpnk.net
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          8 months ago

          States can enforce the constitutional age limit, it’s incoherent garbage nonsense to pretend states can not enforce the constitutional treason restriction

    • snooggums@midwest.social
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      8 months ago

      Only if you equate an openly obvious case of Insurrection and attempting to overthrow an election to the GOP going ‘lol ban Dems’ with no actual charges.

    • Zaktor
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      8 months ago

      You don’t though, because the case will still rise to the Supreme Court and be shot down for being bullshit. If they get on board with disqualifying candidates for trumped up charges, then we have a constitutional crisis, but just because one state court’s opinion is validated doesn’t mean other courts just get the ability to disqualify at will.

      • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        If disqualifying candidates based on false pretences is a “constitutional crisis”, why isn’t THIS inverse — restoring an insurrectionist to the ballot — a “constitutional crisis”?

        At this point “constitutional crisis” just sounds like another fantasy guard rail “check” or “balance” that people view as a turning point or line in the sand, but in reality everyone will just accept the fascist takeover and act like things aren’t bad enough to do anything about it yet

        I swear, if they shit all over our freedoms 13 or 14 more times, they’re gonna regret the numerous times they shat all over us and we did nothing!

        • John_McMurray@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Because someone somewhere would have to make insurrection charges stick. They’ve completely failed at that. This whole thing is political theatre like you read about 70s USSR. Idk is gonna win but it’s a knives out battle like Kruschkev n Gorbachev won.

          • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Al lot of charges have “stuck” hence why Trumple has offered to pardon everyone when he wins.

            You don’t need to go to another country for an example when you can just look at the US. McCarthyism is the political theatre you are talking about. The Red Scare and ruining countless peoples lives over made up bullshit.

            This ain’t made up. The sexual assaulter did not concede willingly and fomented an insurrection however dumb or ineffective it was.

    • MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown@fedia.io
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      8 months ago

      the states all already have disparate requirements regarding how to get on the ballot: filing deadlines, petition signatures, write in eligibility… How is “verifying against constitutional requirements” any different?

      By the logic of that decision, states must allow young candidates to run on the ballot, even if they would not be 35 by the inauguration date, because that is a constitutional requirement that can only be enforced at the federal level.

      • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        And foreign-born candidates. In fact, if “shall” means “must be enforced by congress,” you don’t even have to be a US citizen at all.

        Obviously such a candidate could be disqualified by congress, but states apparently have no right to disqualify such a candidate themselves.

      • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Don’t make this out that they can remove innocent people from the ballots.

        You make a good point, but what prevents this?

        • stoly@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          You’ve just discovered the fundamental problem with democracy: it operates on good faith in a Machiavellian world.

          • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Machiavelli was satire. It was meant to show the stupidest way to do things.

            Most people aren’t like that. We just haven’t found a good way to rid ourselves of psychopaths and narcissists.

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      You know, I was under the impression that refusing to do the right thing because you’re scared of the consequences was the definition of cowardice.

      The fact that SCOTUS decided that letting a literal insurrectionist stay in the ballot, rather than make the legally and morally correct decision, only because it would mean they’d have to smack down Texas, Florida, et al, later, makes them cowards.

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      The states have always had that choice, with due process, to disqualify candidates. Colorado disqualified a candidate in 2012, and Gorsuch was one of the judges that ruled in favor of Colorado.

      Hassan v Colorado, 2012

      as the magistrate judge’s opinion makes clear and we expressly reaffirm here, a state’s legitimate interest in protecting the integrity and practical functioning of the political process permits it to exclude from the ballot candidates who are constitutionally prohibited from assuming office. See generallyMunro v. Socialist Workers Party, 479 U.S. 189, 193-95 (1986); Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. 134, 145 (1972).

      The judgment of the district court is affirmed. Appellant’s motion for publication is denied.

      Entered for the Court
      Neil M. Gorsuch Circuit Judge

    • quindraco@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      You don’t need to be any more careful than when enforcing the rules on place of birth, age, or term limits.

    • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I agree, but if they expicitly stated it was on the grounds of insurrection I think it would have set a good precedent.

      • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        They voted that the states aren’t allowed to execute it. It needs to come from Congress. He should be off the ballot everywhere.

        • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Which is why this was dumb. My statement was saying it could have been a good thing. But we live in the timeline where Wonka doesn’t make fucken Wonka bars and everything is shit so the traitor stays on the ballot.

    • stoly@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      You seem to gloss over that CO was fully justified. Further SCOTUS did not invalidate the finding that Trump participated in an insurrection.

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      they could have easily put road blocks on it such as “must be under federal prosecution for or convicted of specific crimes or actively battling federal troops under lawful orders.”

      Another twinge in the gears is that even if Biden pardoned Trump, Trump should still be unable to run for president under the constitution.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    8 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig issued a searing rebuke of the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision that Colorado could not disqualify former President Trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment’s insurrection ban, preserving his ability to seek a second term.

    Voters and advocacy groups had filed dozens of challenges to Trump’s ballot eligibility in states across the country, claiming his actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack triggered his disqualification.

    The high court sided with Trump by ruling Congress has exclusive authority to enforce the 14th Amendment to disqualify federal candidates.

    Luttig, who had been vocal in support of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to bar Trump from the ballot, described Section 3 of the 14th Amendment as the Constitution’s “safety net for America’s democracy, promising to automatically disqualify from public office all oath-breaking insurrectionists against the Constitution, deeming them too dangerous to entrust with power unless supermajorities of both houses of Congress formally remove their disability.”

    The Supreme Court has now rendered that safety net a dead letter, effectively rescinding it as if it had never been enacted,” Luttig wrote.

    He continued, “That the disqualification clause has not previously been invoked to keep traitors against the Constitution from having a second opportunity to fracture the framework of our republic reflects not its declining relevance but its success at deterring the most dangerous assaults on our government until now.”


    The original article contains 462 words, the summary contains 230 words. Saved 50%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!