The Pitchfork Ruling
If you read one thing on the internet today, make it this: The Pitchfork Ruling
Timothy Snyder hits it out of the park with his essay on the reason that political commentators are wrong when they suggest that Donald Trump should be allowed to run for office to prevent his resentment driven supporters from resorting to violence.
In advising the Court to keep Trump on the ballot, political commentators elevate their own fears about others’ resentment above the Constitution. But the very reason we have a Constitution is to handle fear and resentment. To become a public champion of your own own fears and others’ resentments is to support an insurrectionary regime.
The purpose of the insurrection clause of the Constitution (the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment) is not to encourage insurrections! If we publicly say that that Supreme Court should disregard it because we fear insurrections, we are making insurrections more likely. We are telling Americans that to undermine constitutional rule they must only intimate that they might be violent.
via TPM Morning Memo
Posted 3 January 2024 by Mark ·