Our friends over at the Wall Street Journal have quite correctly taken note of the Democrats in Colorado who are attempting to keep former President Donald Trump off the ballot in 2024. The editorial board wrote of this:
Six voters in Colorado filed a lawsuit in state court Wednesday to block former President Trump from appearing on the ballot there, citing the theory lately en vogue that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment disqualifies Mr. Trump from sitting in the Oval Office ever again. Does this begin the countdown to the political case of the century at the U.S. Supreme Court?
Watching this litigation closely is somebody whose opinion matters: Colorado secretary of state Jena Griswold, a Democrat re-elected last year. ‘I look forward to the Colorado Court’s substantive resolution of the issues,’ Ms. Griswold said Wednesday, ‘and am hopeful that this case will provide guidance to election officials on Trump’s eligibility as a candidate for office.’ What a perilous path to go down.
The Colorado lawsuit, filed with assistance from the wrecking crew at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, repeats as self-evident the same claims circulating in the public debate over sidelining Mr. Trump. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, passed after the Civil War, was originally aimed at disqualifying Confederates who had taken an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and then ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.’
Well now.
Over here in yesterday’s edition of The American Spectator was this decidedly accurate piece by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. And while it didn’t mention the move by Colorado Democrats, it certainly applies to their effort to keep Trump off the ballot. The speaker used this headline over a smiling photo of former President Barack Obama:
American Despotism
We are faced with a totalitarian cancer that will have to be confronted and defeated at every level.
The speaker wrote:
America is now in the deepest, most dangerous constitutional crisis since the hostility in the 1850s that led to secession and civil war.
This constitutional crisis is so widespread and threatening that House Republicans must dramatically widen their investigations. Hunter Biden and President Joe Biden are only a tiny part of a spiderweb of corruption, dishonesty, criminal behavior, and state weaponization. The rule of law is steadily being replaced by a frightening new rule of power.
…One of the great questions for our generation is whether a ruthless minority weaponizing government and destroying the American rule of law can use sheer force and threat of force to make Americans accept things in which they do not believe.
…A startling movement of totalitarian thought and behavior control is growing. It is eager to use government and the threat of prosecution to coerce the rest of us.
Bingo.
Ground zero for this totalitarianism is, of course, the multiple prosecutions of former President Donald Trump by prosecutors in Georgia, Washington, D.C., and New York. And these totalitarians/fascists have names: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia, Special Counsel Jack Smith in Washington, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg in New York, and Attorney General Leticia James in New York. Not to be forgotten either is U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan and District Judge Timothy Kelly, both in Washington. It was Kelly who said the following when sentencing Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio to 22 years in prison for Jan. 6 — when Tarrio wasn’t even in Washington. CNN reported Kelly’s comments when he sentenced Tarrio:
“It is kind of hard to put into words how important the peaceful transfer of power is,” Kelly said. “Our country was founded as an experiment in self-government by the people, but it cannot long endure if the way we elect our leaders is threatened with force and violence.”
“Mr. Tarrio was the ultimate leader, the ultimate person who organized, who was motivated by revolutionary zeal,” Kelly said at the end of the three hour hearing, adding that he has shown “no remorse.”
“What happened that day did not honor the founders, it was the kind of thing they wrote the Constitution to prevent.
As Deroy Murdock noted yesterday, also here in The American Spectator:
The only thing more hypocritical than Democrats persecuting Donald Trump for election denial would be a man in a brothel denouncing prostitution with a towel around his waist.
Democrats challenged GOP presidential electors in 1960 and 1968. They have tried to overturn every Republican presidential win in the 21st century.
…The Trump 2024 campaign released a superb new TV commercial that exposes elected Democrats as filthy, hypocritical liars. In this well-researched spot, Democrats incriminate themselves via news clips, political speeches, and congressional statements. This ad subtitles each speaker’s words. This should force Democrats to confront their leaders’ pronouncements.
And if violence over an election’s outcome is his concern, it is abundantly clear that either Judge Kelly did not do his homework about the violence that threatened the inauguration of President Trump — or he simply does not care because the violence was coming from the left. Recall this January 2017 reporting:
From Reuters:
Violence flares in Washington during Trump inauguration.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Black-clad activists among hundreds of demonstrators protesting Donald Trump’s swearing-in on Friday clashed with police a few blocks from the White House, in an outburst of violence rare for an inauguration.
From ABC:
At Least 217 Arrested, Limo Torched Amid Trump Inauguration Day Protests in Washington
Violence flared on some streets of Washington, D.C., today amid Donald Trump’s inauguration — with people smashing car and store windows, clashing with police and even torching a limo, leading to more than 200 arrests.
Trump inauguration protest damages parts of downtown Washington
And on and on went the parade of stories about violence directed at interfering with “the peaceful transfer of power.”
Question? How many of the rioting leftists were sentenced to 22 years in prison? Here’s this NPR headline:
Jury Finds First Batch Of Inauguration Protesters Not Guilty Of Riot Charges
Or in other words? If you violently disrupt the inauguration of Trump, hey — no problem. If, on the other hand, you oppose the counting of controversial and constitutionally challenged votes that elect Joe Biden on Jan. 6 — and you aren’t even in Washington — than it’s 22 years in the slammer.
Which brings us back to Speaker Gingrich’s point:
A powerful and growing faction of the American Left would undermine the Constitution, turn the government into an instrument of coercing Americans to do what it wants, and use the law as a weapon to destroy its political opponents.
And his point applies exactly to those Coloradans and others who are trying to overturn democracy by keeping Trump off the ballot.
And it applies as well in the vast difference in the treatment of the Jan. 6, 2021, protesters and those anti-Trump protesters on Jan. 20 of 2017.
In short, the two-tiered standard of authoritarian/totalitarian justice is vividly on display.
Buckle in.
