Rush Limbaugh provided me with one of my favorite quotes, “Words mean things.” Just as there are legal distinctions drawn among multiple types of homicide, from self-defense to premeditated murder, the word “insurrection” has specific legal meaning.
As much as I abhor the way that Trump has managed to twist the foundations of the country to the breaking point, from a legal standpoint, it will take much more than what we currently know to define it as insurrection.
Had Trump stood on the Capitol steps, pointed at the building and screamed “Tear down the walls!”, as he patted each person running by on the rear with an “Atta boy!”, it wouldn’t be insurrection unless he also had a plan for how he would proceed to reorganize government afterwards. Absent a planned new government following the attack, the word that defines such an attack is terrorism.
A planned new government is what differentiates them. Terrorism is a felony. Felony conviction is not a barrier to the Presidency. Eugene V Debbs ran for President from prison. Without an amendment to the Constitution that adds terrorism or felony as a barrier, there are no federal means to prevent a person from running for President.
There was only one and “We, the People” blew it when congress failed to impeach him. Anything that happens to this country beyond that is the direct result and responsibility of the elected officials that failed to do so. Using impeachment as a political football and by doing so, reducing its importance is absurdly irresponsible. State sovereignty provides that each state can control who goes on the ballot however.
If the goal is to make it impossible for the American People to choose a misanthropist as our leader, the only way to do it would be to get enough states to remove him from the ballot to make it an electoral impossibility. Whether we want to admit it or not, we are a free people and we have every right to elect a psychopathic misanthropist with dementia as our leader if that’s what we want
Reply