by Tim Donner
The Colorado Supreme Court, acting as supplicants for the enemies of Donald Trump seeking the most extreme remedy for driving the former president into the ditch, may have just unwittingly gifted the former president a Rocky Mountain high – in the polls.
This time, four left-wing Colorado justices attempting to kneecap Trump were not even going to wait on due process – the very foundation of law – to effectively declare Trump guilty of insurrection, a crime for which he has not, repeat not, even been charged. After believing their attempts to wipe Trump off the ballot would be a knockout punch, it is the left that is about to get walloped to the canvas with a right hook.
But how, you say, is this good news for Trump? Let us count the ways. First, we know that every time he has been targeted and indicted based on novel legal theories never before applied, his popularity has only increased. Second, this decision provides him with yet more valuable and indisputable evidence – perhaps the best yet – supporting his claim of persecution by the establishment left. He can enjoy that benefit without the liability of actually being banned from the ballot once the U.S. Supreme Court likely shoots down the Colorado ruling, thus bringing similar efforts in other states to a halt.
But there’s more. Third on the list of how the left is hurting its own cause with its lawfare crusade against Trump is its whole argument that Trump threatens “democracy” as never before. That assertion hardly stands up when it boots Trump off the ballot: “This is hands-down the most anti-democratic opinion I have seen in my lifetime,” said famed constitutional attorney Jonathan Turley.
A subset of democracy is reason number four: election interference. Even after its constitutionally dubious changes to election law on the fly in key swing states in 2020 that undoubtedly handed the election to Joe Biden, the left has crowed from the rooftops that Trump is an election denier intent on interfering with the electoral process. Now that they are trying to remove him from the ballot, what are they going to say? This is textbook election interference, though of a kind rarely, if ever, witnessed before.
Fifth, even Trump’s primary opponents – Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Ron DeSantis – have again had little choice but to jump to the defense of their rival despite his overwhelming lead, further strengthening Trump’s candidacy and all but ending the Republican presidential primary, if it wasn’t over already.
Leftists constantly indicting Trump have actually gotten the reaction they envisioned: forcing the GOP to support Trump. The idea was that Biden would then sail to another term against a convicted criminal sure to repel the American electorate in the end. The strategy has turned into the most classic backfire we have witnessed in some time.
The Persecution of Donald Trump
For starters, Democrats led by Hillary Clinton concocted a phony scandal to drive Trump out of the 2016 presidential race and then out of the Oval Office for treason. Then they impeached him. Then they impeached him again. Then, they raided his home. Then they indicted him. Then they indicted him again, and again, and again. Now, in a widespread effort to make sure no one will even have the opportunity to vote for him, Colorado is just one of more than a dozen states joining the effort to disqualify Trump. The first five states attempting to remove Trump were shot down in court. But cases in 13 more states remain to be litigated, and they will certainly be influenced by the Colorado ruling and any subsequent decision by the high court. But the Rocky Mountain State will stand in infamy as the first to pull the legal trigger on the most extreme measure available to generate a desired outcome, knowing if it succeeds, it will be open season on Trump throughout the country.
Democrats’ obsession with Trump has featured one overarching theme: They cannot leave well enough alone. Until they started throwing the book at Trump with one untested stretch of legal theory after another, their man Biden was running ahead of Trump. But with each successive indictment, Trump has risen further to the point of now holding a solid, if not commanding, three-point lead according to the RealClearPolitics Average. Who knows where polling would stand if the left had actually allowed the voters to process Jan. 6 for themselves? That infamous day takes on a fresh context with the removal of Trump from the ballot. Overkill?
At the same time, you must give the nihilistic Swampocracy in Washington credit for persistence and ingenuity, if nothing else. It has seemingly done everything that popped into its deranged mind to be sure, dead certain, guaranteed, that Trump will never again become president. How infuriating it must be to see every one of its attempts backfire. Rest assured, Colorado will be the latest. We can’t afford to take a chance on the voters’ judgment, screams the terrified left. Does this not sound like the plan cooked up in 2016 to make sure Trump would never be elected in the first place?
Rocky Mountain Low: Colorado Justice
The decision in this purple-turned-blue state begs many obvious questions for everyone from political junkies to disinterested voters. The Jan. 6 rally-turned-protest-turned-riot falls so far short of an act of insurrection as to make a mockery of the term. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, cited in the Colorado decision, was ratified for one purpose: to prevent Confederate soldiers from seeking national office following the Civil War. An insurrection requires an organized plan to overthrow the government – which did not exist on that dark January day in 2021. If there is not enough evidence to even indict Trump for insurrection, then how can he possibly be removed from a presidential ballot on that basis?
Like virtually every one of the 91 charges pinned on him in four venues, this is the first time a court has ever ruled on the basis of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. It is not dissimilar to the argument about another section of the 14th Amendment regarding so-called birthright citizenship: It was written and intended for the distinct purpose of making slaves citizens but is now employed successfully by immigration activists to confer upon anyone born even an inch inside our border permanent citizenship, even if they entered the country and remain here illegally.
Though it would appear highly unlikely, think what it would mean if the U.S. Supreme Court either refuses to act or affirms the Colorado ruling. Not only would many other states with similar lawfare suits trying to get Trump wiped off the ballot be emboldened, but it also opens wide the door for any reason – or no reason – to remove any candidate from a ballot going forward based on the personal opinions of judges. This from a party that has been screaming about democracy dying in the darkness of Trump.
Do we not base our republic first and foremost on the ability of voters – not courts – to cast their ballots for the person they choose? Despite no such constitutional provision, there could perhaps be a quasi-legitimate argument that a convicted felon should be removed from the presidential ballot, but to do so before justice has been served and due process granted tells you everything you need to know about those willing to go to the ends of the earth to stop the man now favored to become the next president. It is stuff not of a constitutional republic but a banana republic. The left’s failure to recognize all the flashing red lights they have set off with their single-minded persecution of Donald Trump will, one expects, come back to haunt them in the end.
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Tim Donner is senior political analyst at LibertyNation.com. He is a former candidate for the U.S. Senate, entrepreneur, and founder of the nonprofit One Generation Away.
