Democracy 2024: # 51

The year of 2023 is nearly over but emotions have been in full force this past week, mostly as it relates to Donald Trump.

Last weekend, while giving speeches to rallies, the former President revisited a line that he had on a few occasions trotted out before. Trump claimed that illegal immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of America. To say the least, that is some pretty bold stuff to say. It is also sickening. That sort of rhetoric is historically linked to none other than Adolph Hitler. Despite longstanding anecdotes about Trump admiring the communication abilities of the Fuhrer, Trump insists that he has never studied Hitler and basically knows nothing about him. Still though, he seemed confident enough to say that when Hitler spoke about "poisoned blood", he "said it in a very different way."

Yes, as comedian Stephen Colbert pointed out, Hitler said it in German.

We are currently at a time where migration at our southern border is higher than ever and causing tremendous stress on the system. This is a huge problem facing America and any sort of a political solution to alleviating the problem still seems a way off. So, this is a potent issue and one where Trump sadly believes he can again political advantage over Joe Biden.

One can certainly point out significant policy differences and the need to treat legal immigration and illegal immigration differently. However, when one looks at what Trump says regarding "blood", what else can be inferred but to think he is speaking to genetic differences and how it is harming Americans via the mixing of blood produced in the birth of children. Again, this is some pretty vile eugenics advocacy and the willingness for mainstream Republicans to shrug it off or dismiss it as "just Trump being Trump and saying things that nobody should take really take seriously" is morally shameful.

Trump pointed out that this "blood poisoning" is happening because illegal immigrants are coming from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. It should obviously be pointed out that legal immigrants from those regions as well as illegal immigrants from those regions will genetically have the same blood. This is putting aside the obvious that different races of humans do not actually have different blood but that is not what Trump wants his followers to think.

Also, it was glaringly obvious that Trump continually refuses to acknowledge illegal immigration from Europe (i.e. white folks) of contributing to "poisoned blood." Historically, Trump has relied on European immigration as a source for his wives and has chosen to intermingle his blood with theirs. Thus, the issue he has is clearly with people who are black, brown, or yellow. Such a person is unworthy of the Presidency or any position of respect. They are more deserving of being called out for being a pathetic bigot.

That is who Donald Trump is besides being the most dominant political figure of nearly the last decade and the current Republican frontrunner for President, whom according to polls is a serious threat to become President once again. With all that in mind, it only makes sense that so many people, most of them Democrats, desperately want to keep him from being President.

This week, a Democrat dominated Colorado Supreme Court, in a 4-3 split decision shocked a lot of people when it ruled that due to the 14th Amendments wording on "insurrection", Trump was thus ineligible for the Presidency and cannot appear on the state's ballot. While even some conservative legal scholars think there is legitimate standing for this ruling, most expect it will not last and that the Supreme Court will overwhelmingly overturn the Colorado decision in short order.

I am not any sort of expert in Constitutional law, but I think I understand politics and the perception of "fairness" as it relates to the American electorate. Thus, this ruling is nothing but good news, at least in the short-term for Trump. If one were really cynical, they could claim that the four Democrats on the Rocky Mountain High Court are doing their part to ensure that Trump holds on to take the Republican nomination, offering a far more beatable opponent for the struggling Joe Biden, than say Nikki Haley. I cannot claim that was their actual rationale though. This sort of gambit had been tried by Democrats in other states and went nowhere. Very few people thought that Colorado would do what it did though.

Let me say that I think Trump did attempt to illegally overthrow the last election. Currently, he is facing charges in both Georgia and federally related to that. (There was also a big subtext story this week in which the SCOTUS turned down Special Prosecutor Jack Smith's gambit to get the issue of potential immunity for Trump while he was President decided right away.) I do not think a convict should be allowed to be President and I also believe the correct move would have been to convict him of the Impeachment charges in the U.S. Senate after the events of January 6, 2021, which would have left him ineligible for office.

However, that did not happen, and thus far, Trump has not been convicted of any crime, anywhere. I think he probably will one day, but as he and his legal team try to delay these court proceedings as long as possible (and received a slight victory this past week towards that end), it may be that he will go before the American voters un-convicted of any crime to that point. Thus, it will be the duty of the American electorate to reject him in November, though I prefer my fellow Republican primary voters (as I will have to cast a vote in my state this spring towards that end) will do the job first.

Simply put, I do not think it is fair to throw Trump off a ballot for suspicion of a crime committed before an official criminal proceeding has established that fact. I also do not believe a President is immune from such a conviction or is somehow a separate figure in the statute than a legislator or someone who holds a lower office. If I feel this way about the situation (as do many other anti-Trump Republicans), one can only imagine how those ensnared in his cult feel. They already believed that powerful forces were conspiring against them specifically and their right to pick a President and that Trump was a victim. I think as a general concept, that is all ridiculous, but his talking points now has a major new lead. This is putting all the other Republican Presidential candidates in a very awkward position, where they are stuck with in a way needing to defend him and his right to run. Even Chris Christie, who has been running the most vocal of the anti-Trump campaigns has said he believes the Colorado Court reached an improper conclusion. Another GOP candidate, Asa Hutchinson, has been saying this has been a possibility for months and that it will be a huge "distraction" for the Republican Party, while also not explicitly stating he agrees with the ruling.

This will probably be overturned in the Supreme Court, if not by a 9-0 margin, than by at least 6-3. Progressives will holler about SCOTUS being in the bag at that time and Trump will declare a great victory for himself and a huge loss for Biden and the "Deep State." Biden himself is in a position where he can neither say he agrees or disagrees with the concept for keeping Trump off the ballot for legalistic reasons. Right now, right wing loudmouths and officials are musing about how they may get various states to act to keep Joe Biden off of various ballots citing his unwillingness to control illegal immigration or perhaps for being Hunter's dad, or any variety of things. Some are serious about doing that and some are not but just trying to demonstrate the danger in all of this. To a large extent, those claiming the latter are correct. It also has to be pointed out that if somehow the Supreme Court does  provide another huge shock and not intervene to reverse Colorado, then other Democrat controlled states are going to quickly follow suit citing the 14th Amendment, red states may attempt to seriously retaliate, and that would lead to unprecedented chaos across the country both in regards to the Presidential contest and just about everything else down the ballot in 2024. I hope the final say is with the voters, as it always has been.

When all is said and done, the duly elected Republican nominee is likely to be on the November ballot in Colorado. If that person is Donald Trump, he will probably lose the state by a solid margin once again, and other Republicans running there will be dragged down to some extent as well. There was a time when Republicans did very well in Colorado Presidential elections and while the state has been competitive for generations, the GOP used to win a fair share of big races in the Centennial State. Since Trump took over the Republican Party though, Colorado has become bluer and bluer, as suburban and more educated voters have been more and more turned off by MAGA and the political party that enables it. The same can be said about many other states. Republicans have made significant gains in many parts of the country where Democrats used to be the dominant party, but the overall demographic growth in America shows trends that are not good for the Trump Republican Party. In the midst of all the tumult over court decisions and what is legal or not and what is fair or not, that political reality will get overlooked.

For all the political weaknesses of Joe Biden and the divisions within his party and the unpopularity of many of its policies, it will be hard for Republicans to really take advantage of it as long as it follows the path of a demagogue who believes America is a place of "blood and soil" and not a land of opportunity and promise for all.