OPINION:
Some Democrats are hatching a plan to reverse the outcome of the 2024 presidential election if it doesn’t go their way. As Markus Batchelor told the crowd at the Stop the Coup 2025 rally in Washington last month: “Coups can be committed at the ballot. Coups can be committed by seemingly democratic processes.”
Mr. Batchelor, a former District of Columbia school board member and national political director of the left-wing activist group People for the American Way, was speaking about his opponents. As is so often the case, however, his words are almost a self-reflection on the left’s plan to “defend democracy” by refusing to seat Donald Trump should he come out on top in November.
Having considered arguments in the Colorado ballot access case, the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to slap down Democratic maneuvers to delete Mr. Trump from the ballot. The justices can do so without wading into the murky waters of whether the Jan. 6 Capitol fracas qualifies as an insurrection.
Precedent buried in an 1869 opinion by Chief Justice Salmon Chase suggests the application of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — the insurrection clause — is a question for Congress, not the courts. That seems to be the next avenue of attack.
In oral arguments in the Colorado case, Jason Murray, attorney for the plaintiffs seeking to boot Mr. Trump from the ballot, said as much when justices looked more deeply into his intentions.
“If this court concludes that Colorado did not have the authority to exclude President Trump from the presidential ballot on procedural grounds, I think this case would be done, but I think it could come back with a vengeance,” Mr. Murray said. “Ultimately, members of Congress may have to make the determination after a presidential election, if President Trump wins, about whether or not he’s disqualified from office and whether to count votes cast for him.”
A few Democrats in Congress have used the Electoral Count Act to object to certifying the electoral votes in every Republican presidential victory since 2001. If Mr. Trump wins, it’s a foregone conclusion that the disqualification strategy will move from fringe to mainstream, based on how coordinated the left has been in labeling Mr. Trump an insurrectionist.
Under such a scenario, a majority of members in both the House and Senate would have to approve objections saying that electoral votes could not have been “regularly given” to an insurrectionist. If that’s their ploy, Democrats have the will necessary to vote in lockstep. Ultimate success requires finding only a handful of Republicans unable to resist the allure of being hailed as courageous by corporate-backed media outlets.
Given that control of both chambers rests on a handful of seats, it’s even possible that Democrats could flip the House and sustain a Senate majority with Mr. Trump holding an electoral edge. That means this scenario could work without the need for cultivating “maverick” Republicans.
President Biden and his allies never tire of repeating the refrain that democracy is on the ballot in November. This is true. They just lack the self-reflection to realize they are the threat.
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