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Still, I disagree with your second sentence. Trump’s candidacy poses the gravest existential threat to Western democracies since the Third Reich. When he was last president he tried to overthrow democracy - both by voter suppression and by inciting an insurrection. This time he’s promised to jail his opponents, declare martial law and set up a sprawling network of concentration camps. His sheer incompetence is somewhat of a source of comfort, but not enough to gamble the future of civilisation on! His advisers and allies may well have learned some of their errors in execution from last time.
The really dangerous precedent here is allowing Trump on the ballot. It would establish that people who try to destroy democracy will face no consequences for their actions. Even if Trump’s ultimately too thick to carry out his deranged plans a more savvy fascist may well not be. Sometimes a firm line in the sand has to be drawn. Trump must be held to account for his criminality.
I don't disagree that Trump (and more importantly, the cunts behind him like Bannon and Miller) poses an existential threat to the US and a whole bunch of other countries beyond their borders. They are vile, neo-fascistic demagogues who are hostile to any form of democratic governance. Just so we're clear.
However, what they tried to do with this legal action is remove from the ballot a guy who, under current US federal and constitutional law, is not deemed to be ineligible to run. He has not been tried and criminally convicted of insurrection, sedition, seditious conspiracy or treason (or even any other criminal charge for which there is a prohibition clause against being qualified to run). Yet.
But that's the point:
Yet.
Even though there is an overwhelming amount of public evidence for the commission and perpetration of these crimes, there is still a presumption of innocence until guilt is proven in a court of law -and that has not in fact happened.
Yet.
If they had gone to the courts after he was tried and found guilty of his crimes, instead of blowing their wad early on a doomed legal gesture, they'd have stood a better chance of getting their way without making a big noise and giving the far right
yet another grievance point to push on their voters and motivate them to turn out. In addition, there's that 'unaligned' third of the US electorate who have a significant percentage of their number that lean right and who (as a result of their 'principles') take a dim view of "government overreach" who might now become animated by this decision and, as a result, might put their electoral thumb on the scales in 2024.
All this exercise in legal futility has done is get a state-level decision about this issue made in Trump's (and now any other demagogic, far right dickhead's) favour, made a big showy noise in the national media, and drawn attention to the fact that, under the present system, the legal strategy of 'Delay, Delay, Delay' is one that works for showy grifters and dangerous extremists.
We may not like how it's currently being used and abused, but that's the system they work under. There are justifiable parallels between 1930's Europe and the present-day US -particularly WRT the breakdown of trust in government, a hopelessly dysfunctional legislative branch and a legal and constitutional system ill-prepared for such a focused and organised movement to subvert and destroy it -the mood music certainly sounds alarming.
Sadly, the only way to remove the guy is to work within the creaky and hopelessly compromised system that they find themselves in. Due to how badly stacked the deck is against such an action, going to court with a certifiable 'lock-out' would have been the better option (even then there's no guaranteeing that even that would succeed) -especially in a legal system where it seems that their publicly elected judges don't necessarily even have to have a thorough knowledge of the laws upon which they base their decisions upon.
The fact that they chose to go in prematurely and perform the legal equivalent of the charge of the light brigade is beyond short-sighted and self-defeating. All they have succeded in doing is fuelling this monster that threatens to overwhelm them all and
that is bordering on the unforgivable.