Is Trump Really Off the Colorado Ballot?

Before we try to figure out what the Supreme Court may or may not do with Colorado’s decision to kick Trump off their ballot, a little bit of history, okay?

The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, was primarily a corollary to the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery and turned 4.5 million pieces of chattel property into human beings. And since these human beings lived in the United States, it was necessary to define their civil rights.

For this reason, the Amendment promoted the idea of ‘equal protection,’ a concept that has been used in such important cases as Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade and Bush v. Gore.

The Amendment also defined a certain class of individuals who would not receive all the civil rights due everyone else, namely the right to hold a political office which was denied to persons who had engaged in an insurrection against the government, an issue which had come up when the Confederate states rejoined the Union and had to send representatives to the Congress in D.C.

If today’s Court finds in favor of Trump and against Colorado, I suspect the decision will be based on narrow, procedural grounds having to do with whether the President is considered an ‘officer’ or whether Trump has actually participated in an insurrection, the latter awaiting his trial on the indictments…