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Gavin Newsom doesn’t want to remove Trump from California ballot
(www.independent.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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Unpopular opinion time: Newsom is right. Kicking Trump off the ballot, just like expanding the Supreme Court or having a state’s electors vote differently from the popular vote in that state, is perfectly legal. But, just like those things, it’s an escalation outside democratic norms which invites retaliation in kind which is a dangerous thing to do when fascism is already on the rise.
Trump shouldn’t be off the ballot. He should be in prison along with the other architects of the coup. There are mechanisms within existing democratic norms which are well equal to the task of responding to what he did. Eroding the guard rails a little further because what we’re having trouble getting it done inside the guard rails is dangerous as hell.
Fascists don’t care about and won’t respect governmental norms. The only way to stop them is preventing them from getting onto power in the first place and we’ve been failing miserably at that since Reagan.
(Edit: "Fascists don't care" part is 100% accurate. That's more than anything what defines fascists, the in-group and the winning being more important than any particular set of laws or norms. "The only way to stop them" is what I think is inaccurate.)
I don't think this is accurate. Trump's a fascist, and he came to power already in the first place, and we survived (so far).
How Democracies Die goes into this in quite a bit of detail with historical examples. Basically my takeaway from it is that the key factors are:
Point #2 is why I say this is a bad idea.
The problem is, your position doesn't make logical sense.
If Trump is innocent with regards to Jan. 6, he should not be in prison and should be allowed to be an electoral candidate.
But if he is guilty (and even if not proven in a court of law - just guilty as a matter of fact) then he is ineligible to run per the constitution.
Otherwise we might as well put Arnold Schwarzenegger or Billy Eilish on the ballot. If popularity is all that matters and the constitution isn't important.
Now, perhaps the Supreme Court comes up with some really good legal arguments to the contrary, but until now, the legal arguments are quite powerful and can't just be handwaved away.
And this is the exact type of situation that the SCOTUS has jurisdiction to resolve.
I'm not saying there's any ambiguity about their legal right to kick him off the ballot. I'm saying it's a very bad idea for them to do so.
Pop quiz by way of example: Does Biden have the legal right to expand the Supreme Court to 100 justices?
Well then, why doesn't he? It'd sure make issues like abortion rights way easier.
I think that’s why Newsom doesn’t want to do it.
In addition, California GOP primaries, while it has a massive elector count, have almost no bearing on the GOP’s strategies in the presidential race. They haven’t won there in so long that the GOP stopped worrying about what “those lefties” think and focused their strategy entirely on the swing states.
If Pennsylvania and Michigan were to disqualify him from the general election for any reason, and it was upheld in court, his candidacy would be effectively over.
Does that mean the threat of fascism from Trump would be over? I don’t think so. The petty and “I’m rubber, you’re glue” thinking of the MAGATs could bring about a second uprising and increase in domestic terrorism. Or a wild power grab by the Supreme Court which further undermines trust in the institution.
Yeah. You can't run a democratic country with 40% of the country thinking the system is rigged against them and wanting to just burn the whole thing down. Kicking Trump off the ballot (in any state, battleground or not) just turns that burner up by that much more.
That's not to say it's as simple as "keep him on the ballot, let him win, end of democracy, o well we tried." I think a much more concerted government effort to combat the propaganda systems (Fox News, all its new runty media children, AM talk radio, and all the new totally-fact-free internet political propaganda) that got us to this place in the first place would be good. I think a more modernized approach to communicating with the electorate by the government would be good. I think younger people in politics instead of just the same old geriatric crew would be great. I think fixing some of the very real neglect that both parties have given to the working class since about 1980 would be good. Basically, fixing the underlying issues that led to people loving Trump in the first place. For as much of a big bag of human shit as he is, there's a reason he was able to come in and scoop up so many votes. Leaving the conditions in place but removing him from the ballot to inflame the fascism is like the worst of all possible worlds.
I agree, Trump is antifragile and benefits from being kicked off the ballot: he now gets to play the victim even more and helps further radicalize his base.
Yeah. They won't at all understand that it's legit to keep him off the ballot. They already think the election was stolen in plain sight; they'll just assume this is the next undemocratic authoritarian trick.
Of course putting him in prison will also radicalize his base and give him something to play victim about, but oh well. It's more effective by a lot, and more clearly within democratic norms we're trying to preserve by a lot.