Prominent Conservative Tells SCOTUS “Enough” – Ignore MAGA Threats. Do Your Job

We all know what MAGAs are capable of when Trump riles them up. We also know he’s doing it again, and with increasing frequency and intensity. Even one of his lawyers says Trump’s worried about his legal problems. No wonder he’ been winding up his MAGAs with increasingly frequency and intensity.  Not that he hasn’t already created plenty of danger. It’s a fact that there have been credible death threats against a number of people and even some plots broken up. For some folks who’ve stood up to Trump and Trumpism/MAGA their lives will never be the same. Nor in so many cases that of their loved ones. Such is the legacy of Donald J. Trump. Most of the GOP has been afraid to stand up to him. Too many openly and in disgusting ways enable him. That’s what makes this article from Raw Story jump out at me. NYT columnist David French is no run-of-the-mill conservative. And he’s calling on and calling out SCOTUS to do their jobs – to follow the 14th Amendment and uphold Colorado’s decision to bar Trump from the ballot!

The Raw Story article describes how in his NYT column French says “Enough” when it comes to worries about Trump inciting more violence. He also makes it clear the Colorado Supreme Court correctly interpreted the 14th Amendment.  French pretty much tells SCOTUS something like: You folks wanted the big stage, to be stars so accept the weight and responsibility that goes with it and step up. Do the right thing by the Constitution and the law:

More to the point, he added the court’s eventual ruling on the Civil War era amendment with regard to the former president is likely to divide the country, and that the justices shouldn’t try and find a way around that. They need to step up like previous courts have done in critical cases ranging from Brown v. Board of Education to the recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling that threw a woman’s right to making private health decisions into chaos.

I feel the need to point out French’s conservative bona fides. He’s a die-hard Evangelical GOPer who has championed their agenda both in print and in court, Hobby Lobby being an example. (For more about him here’s his Wikipedia link) French notes when it comes to political violence and threats of it we’ve been in a bad place for years because of Trump. Clearly he’s fed up with it and wants the GOP to reclaim itself from the grubby little orange hands of MAGA’s “Messiah.” He says (accurately) Trump/MAGA commits threats, violence and lies and then tries to escape accountability through more of the same. This guy isn’t pulling any punches:

“At the heart of the ‘but the consequences’ argument against disqualification is a confession that if we hold Trump accountable for his fomenting violence on Jan. 6, he might foment additional violence now,” he wrote before adding, “Enough. It’s time to apply the plain language of the Constitution to Trump’s actions and remove him from the ballot — without fear of the consequences. Republics are not maintained by cowardice.”

French concedes people can and will debate forever over what constitutes insurrection. He concedes Trump didn’t try to establish a “breakaway Republic.” However he goes on to say (as I see it) Trump did something just as bad if not worse. He points out that Trump tried to “seize and hold” the Executive Branch of our government. And that while his footsoldiers didn’t wear gray uniforms or use cannons they stormed and invaded the Capitol, which the Confederate Army never managed to do! Because of that he says it wouldn’t be a stretch to apply Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to Trump. French also tells SCOTUS they shouldn’t be afraid to intervene in a presidential contest over fears of any destabilizing effect on American politics. “Fear of a negative public response cannot and must not cause the Supreme Court to turn its back on the plain text of the Constitution — especially when we are now facing the very crisis the amendment was intended to combat.”  (Emphasis added)

It may sound old school idealistic but French sums up the issue pretty well:

“If the court rules against Trump, the nation will be told to brace for violence. That’s what seditionists do,” he pointedly wrote of the modern GOP, “Republicans are rightly proud of their Civil War-era history. The Party of Lincoln, as it was known, helped save the Union, and it was the Party of Lincoln that passed the 14th Amendment and ratified it in statehouses across the land.

“The wisdom of the old Republican Party should now save us from the fecklessness and sedition of the new.”

I don’t know about you but that last line really hit home with me. It’s too bad, tragic even that wasn’t a sentiment Mitch McConnell was willing to state during either, but especially the second of Trump’s impeachments. If the Senate, the GOP part at least had done its job then, SCOTUS wouldn’t be on the hot seat now. And an awful lot of the crap we’ve been put through already wouldn’t have happened. Well, we are where we are. The Trump cancer is still growing and threatening to kill our form of government. Treatment for actual cancer is often brutal, but people endure it or they will die. That’s where we are now. We don’t like it, and rightfully dread what we’ll experience to defeat this political cancer but it has to be done. Starting with the right people in the right position of power doing what we (and they) know they need to do.

The Justices on SCOTUS wanted the spotlight. The power and authority. They need to step up and embrace it. Yes, I take the threats of violence seriously. So does the FBI, their state counterparts and LE in general. It’s disturbing and even scary that there’s so much that’s been brewing due to Trump tiny little fragile ego. But I trust them to keep a lid on things. So should SCOTUS.