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Politics: The Ballot
Dec. 28th, 2023 09:36 pmAm I the only person who sees how dangerous allowing Secretaries of State to unilaterally remove candidates from the ballot is? Am I the only person who sees how this is going to end in Republicans removing Biden from the ballot on the flimsiest of pretexts? There is no win condition here. Either the Supreme Court rules that they can do this and suddenly everything a Democratic presidential candidate does is an insurrection or the Supreme Court rules that they can't do this and Democrats are suddenly the people who were trying to extrajudicially remove Trump and his followers are galvanized!
You do not ever give the government any power you aren't okay with the other side having! There are NO EXCEPTIONS to that!
I keep hearing "Well no Democrats have engaged in an insurrection."
You think that matters? It's like when you're talking to TERFs. "We want to protect women!" sounds fine and lovely until you realize they're not defining "protection" or "women" the same way you are. As long as they have a flimsy pretext, as long as they have something they can call an insurrection, they won't care. The thing the courts are being asked to rule on is not "Did Trump commit insurrection;" it's "does the Secretary of State have the authority to declare that unilaterally without any kind of court proceeding."
Due process is due process even when it is people we hate. Especially when it is people we hate. Trump is evil; the Secretary of State still should not have the authority to unilaterally declare him invalid. Republican Secretaries of State will take this as a chance to remove Biden. It will become like how impeachment is now a thing we just do whenever the House and Presidency are controlled by different people-- the difference being there are enough guardrails on impeachment that doing it doesn't change who is in power without compounding factors. There are no guardrails on this. The entire point is that there are no guardrails on this.
We are taking another step away from democracy and towards autocratic control, and Democrats are rejoicing because it is their autocracy. I have news for you: Republicans are better at it than we are. They've been playing the game a lot longer, they're a lot more focused, and they have a lot more power in the enforcement mechanisms of the government. If we encourage the country towards autocracy, they will win, and you should be concerned about steps towards autocracy even when it's people you like becoming the autocrats.
But everyone is like "Yay, the dominoes are falling!"
They are falling. But they're not falling in the direction you think they are, and there will be no controlling the avalanche they trigger.
You do not ever give the government any power you aren't okay with the other side having! There are NO EXCEPTIONS to that!
I keep hearing "Well no Democrats have engaged in an insurrection."
You think that matters? It's like when you're talking to TERFs. "We want to protect women!" sounds fine and lovely until you realize they're not defining "protection" or "women" the same way you are. As long as they have a flimsy pretext, as long as they have something they can call an insurrection, they won't care. The thing the courts are being asked to rule on is not "Did Trump commit insurrection;" it's "does the Secretary of State have the authority to declare that unilaterally without any kind of court proceeding."
Due process is due process even when it is people we hate. Especially when it is people we hate. Trump is evil; the Secretary of State still should not have the authority to unilaterally declare him invalid. Republican Secretaries of State will take this as a chance to remove Biden. It will become like how impeachment is now a thing we just do whenever the House and Presidency are controlled by different people-- the difference being there are enough guardrails on impeachment that doing it doesn't change who is in power without compounding factors. There are no guardrails on this. The entire point is that there are no guardrails on this.
We are taking another step away from democracy and towards autocratic control, and Democrats are rejoicing because it is their autocracy. I have news for you: Republicans are better at it than we are. They've been playing the game a lot longer, they're a lot more focused, and they have a lot more power in the enforcement mechanisms of the government. If we encourage the country towards autocracy, they will win, and you should be concerned about steps towards autocracy even when it's people you like becoming the autocrats.
But everyone is like "Yay, the dominoes are falling!"
They are falling. But they're not falling in the direction you think they are, and there will be no controlling the avalanche they trigger.
