You’d think a hegemony with a 100-years tradition of upkeeping democracy against major non-democratic players, would have some mechanism that would prevent itself from throwing down it’s key ideology.
Is it really that the president is all that decides about the future of democracy itself? Is 53 out of 100 senate seats really enough to make country fall into authoritarian regime? Is the army really not constitutionally obliged to step in and save the day?
I’d never think that, of all places, American democracy would be the most volatile.
We’re ignoring the constitution already.
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.
The man is an adjudicated insurrectionist. Congress just ignored their duty.
So yes, there “are” protections. Said protections are simply being ignored.
The problem with 14th amendment is that the people who wrote that never specified an enforment mechanism. So we don’t know how to properly invoke it. Any attempts to invoke it would just result in the supreme court spontaneously “invent” a method of enforcement. They could say that the supreme court get to decide if someone is ineligible, then rule that trump is eligible because the supreme court doesn’t have enough evidence to prove trump was involved in Jan 6, or just declare Jan 6 to be a “protest” not insurrection.
I mean “No man shall hold office who committed insurrection” seems like a mechanism in and of itself. Dude just can’t run/be on a ballot. We just have two branches of government bought and paid for by the insurrectionist and America’s richest and most fanatical scum who refuse to follow the law.
Who decides who is an insurrectionist?
Simple majority in Congress? Well then Congress can just outlaw the minority party
Supermajority in Congress? Well look at the senate vote for the second impeachment. That doesn’t work either.
Courts? They have a 6-3 supreme court.
States? Then we end up with red states blocking democrats from the ballot by falsely declaring them to be insurrectionists.
Public Opinion? How do you even measure that? Voting? Well look at November 5th.
Criminal conviction of insurrection? Well trump never got convicted of anything involving insurrection.
So here we are…
Can’t be a very good protection if it can just be ignored. I was under the impression that in the US, the constitution is strictly executed, though it looks like even that is a lie
People who say they follow the Bible are usually lying too. And anything that’s allowed to be left up to interpretation and still be called “law” is bound to be corrupted when convenient and ignored when convenient.
It’s like the ICC and UN. They just make suggestions. Whether they are followed or effectively enforced depends on who’s in the dock.