Trump back on CO ballot

Headline (from this past Friday):

Trump Is BACK on the Ballot in Colorado

Following an appeal filed with the Supreme Court by the Colorado GOP, Colorado’s Secretary of State has decided to allow the candidate’s name to appear on the primary ballot. According to Fox News:

On Wednesday, the Colorado GOP filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court after the state Supreme Court’s decision to remove Trump from the primary ballot.

Following the appeal, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold announced that she will include Trump on the primary ballot on the Jan. 5 certification deadline, unless the U.S. Supreme Court affirms the lower court’s ruling or declines to take up the case.

My interpretation: somebody blinked. People have been talking about how the various blue states' attempts to keep Trump off the ballot will end up being slapped down by the Supreme Court, and blue states know this. The Court needs to simplify matters by making one ruling that applies to all blue states currently making this attempt at exclusion: Trump was never convicted of insurrection, so the 14th amendment does not apply. Arguments for the exclusion of Trump have been based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment:

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, 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. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

To make the argument that Trump somehow fomented or led an insurrection, there are a couple of criteria to be met, which Trump did not meet: (1) he has to be established as the inciter, and (2) the actions of the supposed insurrectionists must be shown to have been coordinated. Neither of these has been proven. If anything, video evidence of Trump telling people to go home calmly and peacefully was suppressed by those who wanted Trump to look like an inciter, and as other video evidence increasingly shows, most of what happened that day was a bunch of random milling about, partially allowed by police officers who acted as tour guides. And as I said before, Trump was never convicted of inciting or leading an insurrection. So yes, the Supreme Court needs to make clear that no argument for keeping Trump off a ballot can have recourse to the 14th Amendment.

Ultimately, I think Colorado blinked because they know they have no leg to stand on, and they know the Supreme Court's inevitable reaction (a reaction whose force depends on the extent to which people still respect the rule of law in America). They may also be in fear of the notion that blocking Trump in this way could be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back when it comes to leftist provocation of righties. The right hasn't responded with mass violence thus far, which could be a sign of either courage or cowardice (or a sinisterly strategic patience), but many are convinced a day of reckoning is coming, and while the left is prepared, on that day, to shout See? See? The right is as violent as we've always said!—the right will, at that moment, be well past the point of caring what the left thinks of it, and this chapter of the story will end with bodies in ditches and swinging from lampposts.*

On January 6, a bunch of unarmed people trespassed inside the Capitol and milled about. Yes, there were some random fights that could be seen as rioting. Only one person was actually killed on that day: Ashli Babbitt, one of the protestors. A member of law enforcement did also die, but not on that day, and not because he got mauled and stomped by a bloodthirsty crowd. Video evidence on this point is increasingly clear. Even leftie Wikipedia says: "Five persons died either shortly before, during, or following the event: one was shot by Capitol Police, another died of a drug overdose, and three died of natural causes, including a police officer."**

__________

*I should make clear that, while a barbaric part of me wouldn't mind such a cleansing bloodbath, I wouldn't be happy with total conservative domination of the culture. Conservatives are, I think, more right on certain important matters than the left is (e.g., the economy, foreign policy, education, the role of government, the need for law enforcement, etc.), but conservatives, taken as a whole, haven't really convinced me that they know how to govern a country in a spirit of justice, peace, and harmony. I still think the healthiest country is the one that labors under a kind of dynamic tension, with each side civilly keeping the other side honest. But these days, it's obvious that civility got cast aside long ago, and from what I can see, the knives are slowly coming out.

**There is still debate about the actual number of people who died, and what it means to die "in connection with" the January 6 protests. One Trump supporter, Kevin Greeson (55), died on the day of the rioting, but his heart attack occurred before the protests and riots even started, and while he was standing well away from the center of the ensuing action (his wife said he was against any violence). He is still considered to be one of the deaths that occurred "in connection with" the protests and riots. Do you see how quickly this can get messy? The only definite "killed by a bullet" death is that of Ashli Babbitt. In the months that followed, a few police officers killed themselves, and some drama-hungry people list their deaths as "in connection with" January 6.