politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
The thing is, the 14th Amendment, Section 3 isn’t vague on this point:
Look at the wording - it’s clearly intended to be an automatic disqualification. The only way you could possibly arrive at the conclusion that the Office of the President is exempt from this section is by jumping through frankly absurd and facile semantic hoops.
Pointedly, the only way Congress should be involved (per the relevant section) is in rescinding the disqualification.
But I’m sure the Tribunal of Six will be more than happy to just say “fuck you, we don’t care”. At which point… well, they’re only appointed for life, and they did somewhat recently vastly broaden the scope of the 2nd Amendment, and political violence is on the rise, so I wouldn’t be shocked if one or more people decided enough is enough and conducted a “citizen’s kinetic impeachment”, as it were.
Regardless of how things ultimately turn out, things are definitely 10/10 fucky, and I absolutely hate it.
Alright, I'll play devil's advocate:
Yes, you are correct in your description of what Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says, and what it should mean. However, there is no legal (as opposed to a dictionary or layman's) definitions on what "insurrection" or "rebellion" are, whether the events of January 6th meet either of those definitions, what the definition of "engaged" is, whether the actions Trump took (or didn't take) meet that definition, and (as you already pointed out) whether the President is considered "an officer under the United States."
Failing any one of those conditions means Trump wins:
As you said, this is facile and semantic, but the unfortunate truth is that our legal system absolutely runs on semantics. We are heading for a Bush v. Gore Redux, especially when you consider how many of the current SCOTUS justices had a hand in that decision.
(And no, Trump shouldn't be allowed to run because traitors usually aren't able to do much of anything.) (edit: had to fix this sentence.)