A Liberal Dose, December 28, 2023 "Disqualified? Trump and Section 3 of the 14th Amendment"

 

A Liberal Dose

December 28, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“Disqualified? Trump and Section 3 of the 14^th Amendment”

 

First, I hope everyone had a merry Christmas (or other holiday) and wish all a happy new year.

That said…. Boy, is this year ending with a political bang. As you probably already know, the Colorado Supreme Court has upheld a lower ruling that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection, and further ruled that -pursuant to Section 3 of the 14^th Amendment -he is barred from appearing on the presidential ballot in Colorado. The U. S. Supreme Court, which last week declined to expedite the decision about whether Trump is immune from prosecution because he was president, may agree to hear this case almost immediately. There is a lot riding on that SCOTUS decision. If they overturn the Colorado decision, everything will proceed as normal (if you can call what we do nowadays normal); if they sustain that Colorado decision, Trump may well be barred from appearing on ANY state’s ballots.

This has divided people along more than just political lines. Some people argue in favor of the Colorado decision, claiming it is an accurate reading of the Constitution and that the rule of law must be followed (“Let justice prevail, though the heavens fall”, as the Romans used to say). Others -and I’ve heard this from both ends of the political spectrum -say that voters alone should get to choose who to vote for as president. An opinion poll from Dec. 21 shows that 54% of Americans think Colorado made the right decision, while 35% disapproved of that decision (with 12% undecided). Not surprisingly, 84% of Democrats polled supported the decision. What I found surprising was that 48% of Independents supported Colorado, while only 35% disapproved -and that 24% of Republicans supported it with 66% disapproving. Why is that surprising to me? Significantly more Independents polled believe Trump should be disqualified to run for president than whose who disagreed. And while 24% is a small number, it means that one-quarter of Republicans think Trump should be disqualified -that is a minority, but a significant one. Not surprising: support for the decision is lowest in the South. Surprising: even so, in the South it is 48% in favor vs. 38% opposed.

Of course, opinions are like a certain body part: everyone has one, and everyone’s stinks except your own. So what are the facts? Let’s take a look at that 14^th amendment, one of the three “Reconstruction amendments.” Here is Section 3, in its entirety:

 “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.”

The original district court ruling said that this did not apply because it does not specifically mention running for president. Colorado’s Supreme Court overturned that ruling as erroneous, pointing out that the president is named as an office 28 times in the Constitution and that, as the wording was being argued in the 1860s, the question came up and one of the authors said that “any office, civil or military”, obviously included the office of president.

Not having participated in or supported an insurrection is a qualification to run, just like the fact a candidate must have been born a citizen, must be at least 35, and cannot serve more than two terms.

The only question, then, is: did Trump participate in or support an insurrection? I’ll address that next week -on the anniversary of the insurrection.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 

A Liberal Dose, December 14, 2023 "Understanding the Past is the Key to the Present AND the Future"

 

A Liberal Dose

November 30, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“Understanding the Past Is the Key to the Present AND the Future”

Recently my friend John Gottlied complained that I had spent two columns in a row talking about how bad Trump and the Republicans are rather than being balanced and talking about what I am for, instead of what I am against. In both his recent columns, he has zeroed in on one of the many points I made (such as arguing semantics on whether Trump’s claims of election fraud were thrown out of court 60+ times disproves them) and ignored all the others. This is like if I wrote a column saying that Trump kicks children, eats people’s pets, and runs rabbits, and John responded in-depth about how technically Trump doesn’t run rabbits he just walks them very fast, plus Democrats often frighten rabbits as well. He also said that my specialty is history but I, and other historians, don’t understand the present very well. I’m going to address those points.

First, and foremost, the reason I spent two weeks in a row talking about the “badness” of Trump and what he has turned the Republican Party into is that it has become an existential threat to democracy and we all need to sound the alarm. I don’t say that lightly. Both George Bushes, Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney -all those guys were normal politicians. I disagreed with them, vehemently on some things, but I did not have a legitimate fear that they might destroy America, nor had that idea ever entered my mind about anyone. Joe Biden, too, like Obama and the Clintons, is just a normal politician. You might not like his policies, and you might wax poetic about how he is wrecking the country (like I did with George W.), but everyone understands that nothing he or any other politician does cannot be undone when the next party inevitably comes to power.

Trump is different. He has shown us what he is, and what he wants to be, and the only thing that stood in his way last time was that many of his own people had a conscience and a sense of duty to the Constitution (though it took them an awful long time to find it), which he would correct if he got back into office. It is precisely my understanding of the past that enables me to recognize this and compels me to cry it from the rooftops. Consider:

A cartoonish rabble-rouser comes along who has the power to sway a significant minority of the population by appealing to the racism of some, to their base and violent passions, and their outrage at the establishment for “selling them out.” He gives them groups to blame all their woes on, and encourages them to do so. His every word is hung onto by thugs, many of them mentally disturbed, who are eager to go into violent action to win his approval. He is underestimated by opponents who think he is too buffoonish for anyone to take seriously, and by the conservative establishment who believe they can use his popularity to gain/maintain political power for themselves and control him (but they can’t). He uses his often-imaginary enemies and conspiracy theories to justify terminating the rule of law, and using it instead as a cudgel against his opponents. He does all this by insisting only he can make his country great again. Most of his countrymen ignore his antics and just go along, even as it gets worse and worse, and later claim they had no idea it would get so bad, oops.

Am I talking about Hitler, Trump, or any number of past wannabe dictators? I guess it depends on whether enough people pay attention. I can tell you this, though, what I describe is the very sort of tyrant the Founding Fathers warned us about and tried to circumvent in the very Constitution Trump said we should terminate to return him to power. BECAUSE THEY KNEW HISTORY.

Note: this column was scheduled for November 30. In the two weeks since then, Trump has announced he will only be “a dictator on Day One.” That’s like a fox saying he will only eat chickens on the first day you let him into the henhouse. Meanwhile, all the conservative Republican leaders I mentioned by name above, and others, have sounded a warning that America needs to take him at his word and recognize the threat he poses to democracy.

Bear in mind -returning to history -everyone who supported Hitler was not a racist or a violent thug. Most were just normal people who went along because they liked some things about him and ignored the rest. But history does not give them a pass, because it was all right there in front of their eyes and they refused to see it.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 

A Liberal Dose, Sept. 14, 2023 "Who Is It That 'Weaponized the Justice System'?"

 

A Liberal Dose

September 14, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“Who Is It That ‘Weaponized the Justice System’?”

I want to open this week by acknowledging John Gottlied’s references to my column last week. I can honestly say the same things about his writings that he said about mine: I often disagree (sometimes vehemently), I agree more often than people might expect, and I eagerly await each week’s new installment.

Now on to this week’s topic.

Sometimes my irony barometer is strained to the point of breaking. Oddly enough, it usually occurs as a result of Trump or his followers. Take, for instance, this refrain we are constantly hearing nowadays: “Joe Biden is weaponizing the Justice Department by going after his political enemies!” Or this nugget: “We have a two-tiered justice system, with conservatives on the bottom being persecuted!”

Let’s take that second one first. We DO have a two-tiered legal system, all right. What if Trump really had won in 2020 (instead of just pretending to), and those January 6 protesters had been Black Lives Matter activists? Do you think they would have all gone home and slept in their own beds that night? How many do you think would have never gone home at all? I think we all know it would almost certainly have been more than the one rioter who was killed in the real attack. This, despite the fact that all the numbers show that the vast majority of terrorist attacks in this country since 9/11 have been perpetrated by far-right extremists.

But that first one, about “weaponizing the Justice Department,” that is a real doozy. It was Donald Trump who had, as one of his main campaign slogans in 2016, “Lock her up!” This was over Hillary Clinton’s alleged carelessness with classified documents online, when Trump illegally kept more sensitive documents (involving, among other things, nuclear secrets) in his pool-house and bathroom. It was Donald Trump whose two Senate-confirmed attorneys-general, both of them in ideological lockstep with him, wound up losing their jobs because they drew a line at how far they were willing to abuse their offices at his command. In fact, just 26 days before the 2020 election, Trump called for Bill Barr to indict Joe Biden for the “greatest crime in history,” allegedly “perpetrating the Russia hoax.” Heck, just nine months ago Trump said that “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” 

Before you think I am practicing the sort of what-aboutism I criticize in others, allow me explain the difference. Hillary Clinton did not get locked up, and Joe Biden did not get indicted, for one simple reason. There was no evidence. It was not political -it was Republican officials who declined to do what Trump wanted, for the simple reason they could not win in court with nothing more than accusations. Everything that Donald Trump and his cronies have been indicted for, and are being tried for, is backed up by massive amounts of evidence. This is further reinforced by the fact that, as we learned last week, the Georgia grand jury also recommended indictments for Lindsay Graham, Mike Flynn, and several others (including both former Republican senators from Georgia). If the whole thing was a political hit job, a Republican as prominent as Lindsay Graham would surely have been getting his mug shot taken -but the D.A. declined to indict those individuals because there wasn’t as much clear evidence against them in this case.

To decline to prosecute someone with this much evidence of criminality, just because of an election… THAT would be the miscarriage of justice. Laws matter.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 

 

A Liberal Dose, June 16, 2022 "Someone Tried to Steal the Election, All Right"

 

A Liberal Dose

June 16, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“Someone Tried to Steal the Election, All Right”

 

One week ago (June 9), the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021 had its first live televised hearing. More than twenty million Americans tuned in (more than to the NBA finals), and that doesn’t count the ones who dvr’d it or have watched it on youtube or other websites. The three networks and all major TV news outlets broadcast it live.

Well, almost all.

Fox did not show it. Lest one think they didn’t believe their audience would be interested, note that they did not have any commercials during the Tucker Carlson show, on during the first hour of the hearing (not even from the pillow guy). In other words, Fox News willingly gave up millions of dollars to make sure their watchers did not wander off during commercials and accidentally see something true. Side note: many studies have shown that people who get their news only from Fox are less informed about what is really happening than people who watch no news at all.

I hope all of you watched it, or found a way to go back and watch it later. There was (and will continue to be) testimony from countless witnesses, including quite a few from the Trump administration. Much of it is on film, and in many cases in official documents, plus many people will be testifying live. In other words, it is not a conspiracy theory or “fake news.”

It is as real as the blight on our national reputation it documents.

Here is what we know as FACT:

Donald Trump insisted he won the election, despite the fact most of his people told him he had lost. He continued to deny the outcome, spreading inaccurate information and outrageous theories as his “proof.” His efforts to overturn election results were thrown out by over sixty judges (many of them appointed by Trump himself). His Attorney General, William Barr, was only one of several advisers who told Trump that the claims had no merit and lacked any evidence that voter fraud significant enough to “steal” the election had occurred. Barr called the claims “complete nonsense,” as well as a coarser term that starts with the word “bull.” Ivanka Trump testified that she believed Barr. Barr testified that he resigned because Trump was trying to make him pursue baseless voter fraud claims in an attempt to overturn a constitutional election.

Trump next claimed that the vice president has the authority to throw out electors from any given state by claiming voter fraud, and instead swear in alternate Republican electors from that state. Pence does not have that authority, and there is no legal basis for substituting electors to nullify the will of the people in a given state. Vice President Pence verified he did not have the constitutional authority to do this, yet Trump continued to pressure him to do so. A federal judge has said Trump broke at least two federal laws just in his efforts to corruptly coerce Pence into overturning the election. Meanwhile, Trump pressured governments of states where Biden won to withdraw their fairly chosen electors and/or to back up his unsubstantiated voter claims. He may face charges in Georgia for trying to browbeat that state’s Republican government to “find  him just enough votes to win.” I say face charges, because that is voter fraud.

Trump and some of his inner circle, including Rudy Giuliani, began speaking on the possibility of declaring martial law and having the military seize voting machines and supervise a new election. America condemns this when other countries do it, and rightly so. It is against the principles of democracy. Russia is one of those other countries, by the way.

Man, I’ve barely covered the first point.

I am going to continue, over the next weeks, to summarize every main point of these hearings. It is a litany of shame, dishonor, corruption, and treason.

And it is well-documented.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE