The Daily Escape:
First fall foliage, Cox Brook, Northfield Falls, VT – September 2023 photo by John H. Knox
First, although we may know if Trump has been convicted prior to the 2024 election, it’s highly unlikely that he would be serving time by then, because his convictions (if any) will be appealed. The appeal process will take us well beyond when the Electoral College votes are counted in DC.
Second, The Constitution (before it was amended) contains just three requirements to become president: the person must be a natural-born citizen of the US, 35 years or older and a resident of the US for at least 14 years. That’s it.
In 1868, the 14th Amendment added Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the original text that:
“no person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States … who, having previously taken an oath … 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.”
UCLA law professor Richard L. Hasen, a leading expert on election law, told CNN that Trump has a path to serving as president if he wins the election in 2024: (emphasis by Wrongo)
“The Constitution has very few requirements to serve as President….It does not bar anyone indicted, or convicted, or even serving jail time, from running as president and winning the presidency,”
And while some states prohibit felons from running for state and local office, those laws do not apply to federal elections. More from Hasen, on whether a president may serve from prison.
“How someone would serve as president from prison is a happily untested question…”
If Trump were in jail and prevented by law from leaving jail while his sentence was carried out, that would make running the government impossible. It wouldn’t necessarily prohibit him from serving as president from a cell, at least until he could pardon himself, another untested loophole.
If he tried to pardon himself, or to commute his own sentence, we’d wind up at the Supreme Court. From the NYT:
“Either action would be an extraordinary assertion of presidential power, and the Supreme Court would be the final arbiter of whether a “self-pardon” was constitutional.”
Trump would certainly sue to be released from jail, saying (correctly) that imprisonment prevented him from fulfilling his Constitutional obligations as president. Trump’s lawyers would argue that keeping a duly elected president in prison would be an infringement by the judicial branch on the operations of the executive branch. Again off to the Supremes we’d go.
So time for a few brief reminders: Trump faces no significant opposition to winning the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Plan A among those who really don’t want Trump to win is to say:
“…he will lose in the general election.”
And there’s no Plan B. So, what will your options be if he wins? In general, your options are: Knuckling under, taking part in political violence, or leaving the country. And understand that, regardless of how submissive you are, the number of people who will die in police custody or while “resisting” will go way up. Let’s take your options one at a time:
- Leaving the country is something only rich people can do and it wouldn’t dislodge Trump. It will make him more secure.
- Political violence is personally risky. It requires moral compromise that makes our regular politics look almost pristine. And unless it’s large and well organized, it will fail.
- Knuckling under to tyranny will probably be the response of most Americans, even though most would say that’s incompatible with their conscience.
But all that said, Ukraine’s limited success against a superpower shows that using today’s technology makes it relatively easy to hold large swaths of a country despite the other side’s having a much stronger military.
Wrongo thinks that after a Trump win in 2024, US citizens will have to think seriously about how to handle life under an authoritarian regime. Trump will start out with a soft form of authoritarianism. But later? Who knows what it becomes. A lot of people around the world live under authoritarian regimes, so while it’s awful, it’s also survivable for most people.
And think twice about resistance. As a thought experiment, list out the historical examples of a citizenry that successfully resisted a fascist takeover once the fascists had a firm grip on the judiciary and half of the legislatures.
America has one great shining example of what not to do when Bush v. Gore was decided in 2000. No Democrat (looking at you Bill Clinton!) told the Supremes to fuck off. Even Gore didn’t say “just keep on counting” in Florida. Instead, he crumbled. In a democracy, no court should ever tell the political branch to stop counting votes.
That election was stolen, but Democrats collectively just let it happen. Worse, two years later almost all of the Democrats in Congress voted for Bush’s nasty authoritarian terror bills and a war to avenge 9/11.
Wouldn’t it be much better this time around to make sure Trump doesn’t get the votes of any of your friends, family or neighbors? And better yet, that you get most of them out to vote?
Please don’t plan on sitting back and waiting for a conviction to deliver us from Trump. Why is it in the DNA of Democrats to keep looking for some external solution to our political problem?
Wrongo is an elderly white, married, upper-middle class male living in a Blue state. He’s going to be fine no matter what. He’ll worry about his kids and grandkids, but personally, Wrongo has nothing to worry about. His taxes may even go down again.
But he plans to resist, no matter what.
Very Well Said!