We would estimate that the January 6, 2021 insurrection, uncontestably merits the gold medal for the most popularly viewed political event in television history. On that date, a violent mob of Trump supporters, incited and supported by him, attacked Washington’s Capital Building, protesting his defeat in the 2020 Presidential election. Capitol police Officers were killed, irreplaceable historical treasures were disfigured and destroyed, windows and doors were smashed and the occupants of the Capital building were terrorized. In addition to Trump’s admissions of direct responsibility for said turpitude, the official House Investigation Committee, following an extensive and televised formal hearing, confirmed that the insurrection took place pursuant to a plan devised by Trump to overturn the result of the election. Trump was officially impeached for this unprecedented and un-American travesty.
Article 14 (3) of the Constitution provides, clearly and unmistakably, that Congress has the authority to bar public officials, (in this case, the President), from holding office, if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution.” Regarding the specious issue, raised by MAGA sycophants, as to the applicability of said disqualification to the office of the President, we would notably observe the specifically inclusive words of the Article which state: “…or hold any office, civil or military.”
It is telling that many of the Conservative proponents of “Originalism” who, persistently have held that the Constitution’s legal text should legally be interpreted in strict accordance with the “original understanding” at the time of its adoption, and the “Strict Constructionists,” who would eternally restrict Constitutional interpretation to its exact wording, are now conveniently silent.
What is most disturbing to us is the MAGA-influenced distortion of plain justice and elementary logic (including, unfortunately, members of the judiciary) who, in their expressed, purported concern for the principles of democracy, maintain that, despite the travesty orchestrated by him, seeking to overturn the verified election results by force of violence, the decision as to Trump’s eligibility to run for President, be properly decided by the voters. By the most rudimentary exercise of reason, such a contrived position is patently inappropriate and factually bizarre. Indeed, the deceit and funhouse mirror-type distortion evidenced by this deceitfully positive-sounding argument is infuriating. The same would be equivalent, in its degree of wisdom and pragmatic sense to a strategic decision to, proverbially, assign the guarding of the hen house to the predatory fox.
The bizarre and flawed, “Mad Hatter” reasoning, all too evident in the tactically inappropriate suggestion, reveals itself as nothing short of absolute absurdity when one considers Trump’s publicly stated and demonstrated autocratic denigration of the democratic election process. It is indisputable that the televised, Bastille-like insurrection, mounted by thousands of Trump supporters against the elective process mandated by our Constitution, was factually incited and supported by him, intent on overturning the verified result of America’s election.
To irrationally and undeservedly reward Donald Trump, instead of the application of the clear self-enforcing disqualifying mandate of the Constitution, the uncalled-for and factually absurd privilege of relying on voter choice would be, with, due respect, analogous to the indecorous offering of the Holy Office of the Pope to a bedrock atheist. –p.
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