Despite what US Civics and uber-patriots might have you believe, the USA is not the “perfect union” that the Founding Fathers conceived a quarter of a millennium ago, embodying their noble principles in the US Constitution. More than two dozen Amendments later, its imperfections astill being recognised. Despite its undoubted virtues, this blog had argued it needs to be dragged out of the 18th century when 1 million people in 13 states exercised horse-drawn democracy and shaped for the 334 million using the email, jets, social media, etc. of the 21st century.(see Twelve Score and Seven Years Ago of July 2023, or Republicans Wrecking Their Own Republic of April 2023).
Until a decade ago, US politicians generally respected the rickety rules, even if the monies deployed dwarfed anything the Founding Fathers anticipated. Then along came Donad Trump, whose behaviour in business had shown he didn’t even understand the concept of “Rules” and applied the same bullhorn braggadocio to politics. Regular readers will know this blog holds his tactics and abilities in low regard (see Trump des Willens of July 2023 or. Those Who Walk on Water II‑Donald J. Trump of October 2022). But, unlike McCarthy on the 1950s and Goldwater in the 1960s, Trump holds a large part of a morally malleable Republican party in his snake-like spell
In the 2 ½ years since he was bundled off to Mar Lago to ggrump constantly about the election, his ratings have proved Teflon/ The Republican minnows who might contest the republican nomination for 2024 have kept quiet or scuttled over to the MAGA camp, where Trump rules the roost. Indictment on four separate clutches of charges only seem to have consolidated his support.
Butp however loudly he blusters on Truth Social, however many walls of lawyers he hides behind, what will bring him down is the same flawed Constitution he swore to uphold in January 2017. The 14th Amendment, conceded in the aftermath of the Civil Was to prevent Confederate politicians to lapse into their pre-wa hellor ways, having taken up arms against the republic. It has no time limit, and so applies to both Trump tacit encouragement of the January 6th storming of Congress and his attempts to alter election results in Georgia and other states.
Section III of the 14th Amendment is wordy, but unambiguous.
“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.”
A legal obstacle this massive will derail Trump’s freewheeling trolley—and the MAGA bandwagon brown-nosing close behind.
No.1079—513 words
davidsberry 