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.
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.
We tried that. The states, ostensibly, run federal elections independently of the federal government and decide who goes on the ballots. Colorado, Illinois, and Maine removed trump from their 2024 ballots on the grounds that he was ineligible under the 14th amendment. SCOTUS struck it down saying that the states (who, again, are supposed to have authority to run and administer federal elections within their territory) do not have the authority to enforce the insurrection clause of the 14th amendment.
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…
The legal system, which decided to take its fucking time.