Why matters less than the next point.
The American legal and political system has taken to behaving like a South American dictatorship. In the quest to stop Trump, two states, Colorado and Maine, want to prevent him from appearing on Republican primary ballots. These states claim Trump has committed insurrection, and the 14th Amendment justifies the action.
In my view, Trump, a lying manipulator who surrounds himself with acolytes and white nationalists, would do incalculable damage to the United States, here and abroad. He’s just like several historical figures whose magnetic personalities carried them to the top of government, only to watch their actions result in catastrophe for their countries.
Germany. Spain. Italy. Cuba. I could go on.
Put Trump’s behavior aside (as hard as that might be). The efforts by the legal and political systems to keep the former president off the ballot borders on the kind of criminal behavior he’s accused of.
Those systems are engaged in an effort to rob people of their right to vote for Trump, even if a chunk of the country can’t stand the guy. More than half of voters view Trump unfavorably, and a strong plurality of 46% believes he should be disqualified from the presidency due to Jan. 6 actions.
In Colorado, the Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, voted to keep Trump off the primary ballot. The court, without listening to any evidence, proclaimed the former president guilty of insurrection.
That’s an embarrassing sham.
The secretary of state in Maine followed suit, ruling Trump ineligible for the ballot based on Jan. 6, even though she has no judicial authority. Trump’s appealing both decisions.
In Washington, D.C., special prosecutor Jack Smith took more than two years to investigate whether Trump interfered in the 2020 election. Smith announced the indictments on August 1, 2023. And now wants to rush to trial.
It’s ludicrous that Smith took his time investigating and then tells the Trump team they have seven months to prepare a defense with a proposed trial start date of March 4. Federal trials generally get dates 12 to 18 months after the filing of charges, sometimes longer.
The irony here is that a Trump conviction’s not going to matter to a large swath of voters who see these efforts as a deep-state plot to keep their savior from re-assuming his rightful place — in the Oval Office.
It’ll also make people who can’t stand Trump vote for him anyway to protest what they see as an unfair system engaging in undemocratic efforts (the type of efforts Trump’s likely to engage in himself, but that’s another column).
That’s ironic. The people trying to keep Trump off the ballot or hope for a conviction will instead help his cause.
We don’t know if Trump’s an insurrectionist (could be!) who interfered in the 2022 election. It looks that way to his enemies. But he hasn’t been convicted of a crime, which isn’t a sure thing if you read the legal briefs.
The legal system should play out for Trump as it would for anyone else. There should be no presumption of guilt. He should be on ballots until or if he’s convicted of a crime. Prosecutors shouldn’t speed up his trial because Election Day comes in less than a year.
We shouldn’t be a country that prosecutes people based on their politics, no matter how abhorrent we find the candidate.
This is an especially difficult time for Trump-haters since the former president is on track to win back the White House.
If you’re worried, stop him at the ballot box.
Ray Marcano’s column appears on these pages each Sunday. He can be reached at raymarcanoddn@gmail.com.
About the Author