Illegally preventing Trump from running is net detrimental to our nation.

It was Evelyn Beatrice Hall, (not Voltaire) who wrote, “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it". She better than all others expressed the essence of the “Bill of Rights first amendment to the USA's constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”.

A democratic republic must and is always vulnerable due to its dependence upon the judgment of its citizens who elect the government's officeholders. We seldom if ever have had lesser, and sometimes have had better government than we deserve. We voters make our own choices.

I'm among those of us who believe ex-president Donald Trump to be inferior to all others who are or have ever been president. He was and is unsuitable for any government administrative office. But I'm opposed to those who only “pay lip service” to our constitution and our democratic republic when they advocate by less than legal, or by extraordinary legal means. Trump should be prevented from seeking or being re-elected president of the United States.
Only until he's tried and convicted of sedition against the United States of America, should Trump be prevented from holding any office in our federal government. Respectfully, Supposn

This is the first I'm hearing that hes currently being prevented from running, illegally or otherwise.

Keeping him off the ballots in Colorado and Maine has been accomplished by legal, not illegal, means.

You need to look at the 14th, in addition to the 1rst amendment.

Coordi, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments regarding Trump's appeal of the Colorada court's decision which eliminates his name from 2024 Colorado ballots.

The court could conceivably find in Trump's favor or find fault due to Colorado having denied Trump full legal process and therefore require the Colorado courts to revisit their case.
The Supreme Court could order order Colorado to reprint their 2024 ballots and with Trump's name included among presidential candidates. They also could affirm Colorado court's decisions in this matter.
Main's Courts are awaiting the Supreme Court's decision and will not execute their decision unless the Supreme Court denies trump's appeal.

Jjjou812, It ain't legal if the Supreme court determines it's illegal. The U.S. Supreme Court's our nation's ultimate last court of appeals.

Respectfully, Supposn

Correct, so your worry in the title of the thread definitely can't happen. If he is prevented from being on ballots, it will be done legally, not illegally.

so right now its legal is what youre saying

when some democrat led states and their officers consider the matter and decide it would be illegal for them to ban the candidate, or when their state courts do, and others consider the matter and decide it's legal, and their state courts confirm for them it's legal, that's the clearest possible case where SCOTUS has to decide on the matter.

and until SCOTUS does we can only say that the legality of that choice is currently unknown.

I think it’s important to let the Supreme Court rule on this matter .
Of course if they say he can the pundits on the left will claim partisanship.

Hopefully it’s 9-0 ruling either way

I am more upset with the Democrats efforts to block No Labels from the ballot

My hope is that they allow Trump but for the correct reasons.

The idea that the 14a doesn't apply to the president is wrong.

The idea that state supreme court don't have jurisdiction on the matter is wrong.

The idea that "democracy would be betrayed" if a candidate with good polls gets banned is wrong.

What's right is that trump didn't engage in insurrection so he shouldn't be banned.

It's true that trump conspired to try to get states to reject the outcome of the election and the Senate to nominate him as president. But he did that within the law (and he failed, within the law).

Trying to use legal tricks isn't insurrection.

Meanwhile it's utterly false that he incited a crowd to violently storm the Capitol. Utterly false. We have been hearing completely made up claims about it for 3 years but we were reading his tweets as he wrote them and he never even implied it was proper, correct, reasonable to use violence there in Washington.

lol, whose gimmick account is this?

What does "within the law" mean to you in this context? Just to be clear, this wasn't a situation in which Trump had colorable legal claims and just happened to lose. The overarching strategy here was as follows:

Step 1 -- Assess your options for simply refusing to leave office, no matter the results of the election (very poor, a non-starter)
Step 2 -- File a bunch of baseless lawsuits
Step 3 -- Attempt to pressure state officials to credit baseless allegations of fraud; publicly malign officials who refuse to capitulate
Step 4 -- Run a simultaneous PR strategy in an attempt to convince your supporters that the election has been stolen.
Step 5 -- Do as much stuff with fake electors, etc., as you can manage.
Step 6 -- Hope that Steps 2-5 put enough pressure on Pence to make him violate his duties as VP, thereby precipitating an unprecedented constitutional crisis.
Step 7 -- If Step 6 succeeds, hope that the SCOTUS goes completely in the tank and rules in your favor (very unlikely) or goes partially in the tank by concluding that it lacks jurisdiction (perhaps not likely, but possible)
Step 8 -- If Steps 6 and 7 fail, burn the house down on your way out.

Trying to convice state legislatures that they actually had the power to overturn voters, the idea of sending different slates of great electors, that kind of stuff was legal.

Trying to convince Pence to simply disregard voters was legal as well, he wasn't proposing to disregard rules, it's rules which are insane and would have technically allowed states and the senate to actually disregard the outcome of elections.

PS it might be a good time to change those insane rules, at least those that don't require a constitutional amendment to be changed.

TIL that asking for a recount is "High Treason"

It is not legal to solicit election fraud.

You seem to be defining "legal" as "not criminal." I guess we will see whether a jury believes that Trump violated any criminal laws, but no matter the outcome of those criminal trials, "not criminal" is a strange definition of "criminal." If a 5000 pound i-beam falls from the sky and destroys your house because I was operating a crane negligently, would your characterize my behavior as "legal"? If I attempted to drive your small business into the ground by making baseless public accusations that you are a child molester, would you characterize my behavior as "legal"?

In both cases, my behavior probably was not criminal, but it certainly was unlawful.

All of your post is nonsense. But this is a special kind of sophistry.

I am torn regarding how Trump's running for reelection should be handled.

On one hand, we have somebody that, at least in my opinion, did attempt an insurrection. It is not out of bounds to consider Trump's actions as treason. We should not be having somebody that has such little respect for this country running for president. There was a time in history that somebody that attempted (and failed) what Trump did would just be publicly executed and that would be the end of it. We live in a different time now, but the fact remains that we have somebody running for president that attempted to use violence in order to maintain his power over this nation.

On the other hand, I think not allowing Trump to run emboldens those people that seek to undermine our government and institutions. If we don't even allow their chosen candidate to run for democratic office, then those same people that stormed the capitol will feel justified in using continued and escalating violence against a country that they feel does not allow them to even have a voice. This country has always has a small share of Timothy McVeigh types, and I feel like we are emboldening those types by not even allowing Trump to run.

Additionally, we then have the precedent where state legislatures are deciding for whom a ballot can be cast in an election, and that will be used by red and purple states for their own political purposes. Maybe it doesn't matter much that people in Colorado cannot vote for Trump, as he was never going to win that state anyway, but what about swing states with Republican majority legislatures? What about Florida, the third most populated state in the country that has wavered between Republican and Democrat candidates for president? Given the chance, the republican majority legislature in Florida would absolutely keep Biden off the ballot and high-five themselves when they do so. Do we want to go down that road?

The ideal scenario is that Trump be allowed to run everywhere and get blown out in the general election. It would send a clear message to his supporters that the people don't support their candidate or their nonsense. Obviously a Trump win would be a disaster, but that is the risk we take when we have a democratic form of government.

I don't see how the examples you provide make sense given the topic we are discussing.

Weren't we discussed if trump is guilty of insurrection? Not of any crime.

Insurrection is defined as going against the laws to overthrow the legitimate government so any legal act cannot be insurrection!

It is not fraud if the rules are such that a state legislature can disregard voters.

All of the above are legal acts up to step 6, where the pressure was to violate "the spirit" of his duties, not his formal duties, which would have technically allowed Pence to disregard voters.

Step 7 didn't happen as we know, and step 8 neither, he didn't burn anything not incited anyone to burn anything.

I am not sure which crimes you think were committed in the steps that actually happened, where the insurrection was.

Attempting to find a legal loophole to stay in power because the rules are written terribly isnt insurrection

I'm sorry but this just reads like sophistry. IMO, Trump absolutely was attempting to convince state officials and Pence to act unlawfully.

its a bad look which bolsters his anti-establishment credentials

Which unlawful acts did he try to convince them to do?

I strongly disagree with this take.

It's either Trump is guilty of insurrection, then he can't run for office because of the 14a (which does cover presidents, that's clear in the drafting proceedings), or he is not guilty of insurrection, then he can run for office (others possible crimes don't matter for this purpose).

You don't bend the rules allowing an insurrectionist to run because you think the societal outcome of doing that is better, that's not how it works under the rule of law, you follow the law when clear without blinking, and if you dislike the outcomes of following a law, you change it, but until you do, you accept the outcomes as a necessity of living in a civilized society (ie one with laws, and the laws must be applied no matter the outcome).

So given you think he did engage in insurrection, you should want him out of the ballot.

Act unlawfully to do what? Pence had the power to take a short pause so they can examine all the allegations of extreme voter fraud, after a new type of election was introduced due to the pandemic where people dropped flyers into drop boxes (no ID was checked which has already been proven to be a scam, check out the documentary "2000 mules", it's full of evidence) and the thousands of people who showed up to vote who were turned away and told they already voted.

The thousands of people who showed up (the so-called insurrection) who saw what was happening which was the illegal installation of a dope for a president, a guy who couldn't fill 5 circles at his "rallies" because he's just a front for the corrupt deep state one world natzi globalist cabal who want to take away your very rights.

Trump did nothing wrong that day, and he was never even convicted of a crime. The states can't take it into their own hands to decide who's gonna be on the 2024 ballot.