Our federalist system explicitly allows elections to be run by states, and we’ve seen that over time those states have less and less in common. Given the structural power imbalances between states that tend to bubble to the surface during the electoral count, a political war between them was arguably already happening. This just adds another dynamic to the battle. Texas is threatening legal action against hospitals in Seattle for treating residents of Texas, for crying out loud, so clearly half the country is already engaged in a battle between states.
If everything were to go back to normal today, the GOP would still try to remove future Democrats from ballots. If this had never happened, they’d still try to remove future Democrats from ballots. Just because they’re underhanded and feckless doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enforce 1 of the only 3 requirements to run for the presidency.
A court of law did this, not a political party. A nonpartisan state supreme court, no less. And they made a clear legal ruling to justify it, in light of literally the only thing that’s explicitly disqualifying for the office. This isn’t being made up out of whole cloth, it’s been proven in a court of law and ruled upon by a team of judges. That’s where the decision should be made.
I agree that we need well-defined election laws, but if all it took was a fake-tanned, loud-mouthed, wannabe dictator for the entire system to crumble into itself, I’m not sure we were long for this world anyway.
I’m not disagreeing with any of your points, but we have grey areas being exploited here simply because they aren’t explicitly defined as being illegal. Unless there is a defined FEDERAL ruling against any of which you mentioned, it’s going to create the shitstorm I mentioned.
I get the delineation between the two, but I’m simply saying we should have had legal precedent in place long before we got to this point. It’s super depressing, and extremely scary.
I’m not disagreeing with any of your points, but we have grey areas being exploited here simply because they aren’t explicitly defined as being illegal. Unless there is a defined FEDERAL ruling against any of which you mentioned, it’s going to create the shitstorm I mentioned.
I get the delineation between the two, but I’m simply saying we should have had legal precedent in place long before we got to this point. It’s super depressing, and extremely scary.
I agree.