On January 6, a violent mob broke into the U.S. Capitol, inspired by Donald Trump’s relentless attempts to overturn the results of the election and retain the presidency illegally. In a free and democratic country, this would have ended Trump’s political career — period.
But in America today, there is much discussion of Trump’s political future. The majority of Republican voters support him to be their presidential nominee in 2024. Acknowledging political reality, anti-Trump Republican Senator Mitt Romney predicts that Trump would win the Republican nomination “in a landslide” if he chooses to run.
Now, in a disturbing statement on Fox News, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — who affirmed during the recent impeachment trial that Trump bore responsibility for inciting the attack on the Capitol and said he voted against conviction only because of a Constitutional technicality — nevertheless says that he would “absolutely” support Trump for president if he is the Republican nominee in 2024. Apparently committing sedition against the United States is not enough to forfeit McConnell’s unequivocal endorsement of the most likely person to be nominated by his party.
Here’s the problem with all this: Trump 2024 is being normalized in the minds of Americans. The media is treating it as though it’s a legitimate possibility. But it shouldn’t be treated that way.
When somebody tries to overthrow the U.S. government, as Trump attempted to do — lying for months about fake election fraud and riling up his heavily armed followers to march on the Capitol and take matters into their own hands in a domestic terrorist attack — that person shouldn’t get to be considered a legitimate candidate for political office ever again, and certainly not for the office of President of the United States.
Democrats with political power have a moral duty to speak out against the idea that a Trump 2024 candidacy could be legitimate. They should not treat it as just another election, just another candidate. They need to make it clear that Trump 2024 is unacceptable — indeed unthinkable for a free and democratic country such as the United States — and that if Trump decides to run, Democratic legislators will do everything in their power to prevent Trump from appearing on the ballot, either in as many states as possible or preferably nationwide.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution states:
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.
Donald Trump has clearly either engaged in insurrection against the United States himself, by trying authoritarian tactics to overturn the results of a legitimate election that he lost, or at the very least has “given aid or comfort” to enemies of the U.S. Constitution who broke into the Capitol on January 6 to attempt to prevent Congress from certifying the election of President Joe Biden.
Therefore, Donald Trump should be considered ineligible to run for president again, under the 14th Amendment. Congress should pass a law banning him from the ballot.
Democrats need to rise to the occasion of the grave moment in history in which we find ourselves living — a time when the media is already beginning to normalize the idea of an insurrectionist former president running again and becoming the nominee of one of America’s two major political parties.
Mitt Romney and Mitch McConnell shouldn’t even be asked whether Trump could be the Republican nominee or whether they would support him if he is. Under the 14th Amendment, it should simply be off the table. And it can be, if Democratic legislators have the spine required for these troubled times.
