I am responding to John Donegan’s letter in the opinion section of Feb. 1 (“Ruling Donald Trump stricken from the ballot is a big deal, so don’t take it lightly”).
It seems he has been confused by MAGA Republican propaganda. He said inflation had been running rampant the last three years. Not true. After COVID, the inflation rate hit over 9 percent, but it is now at 3.2 percent. Corporate greed has kept food prices artificially high as they reaped record profits as high as 700 percent. This is an argument for control of monopolies.
Crime is not running rampant; it has fallen dramatically. John said that immigrants are flooding across an “open border.” In spite of Republicans screaming this lie every time a Democrat gets in the White House, there is no “open border.” Yes, we need a new border policy. but the Republican House refuses pass the new bill before them.
Another error was his claim that Biden is decrepit because he is 80. This is ageism. He is mentally sharp, and the wisdom he has gained from his years as a congressman and vice president has produced legislation unmatched since FDR. Compare to Trump, who at 77 with his diet of Big Macs and KFC and no exercise is in far worse physical shape. And just look at Trump’s mental mistakes. He confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi, Biden with Obama, Orban of Hungary with Erdogan of Turkey. It isn’t age, it’s mental acuity, and Biden wins that hands down.
Some conservatives are twisting themselves into Gordian knots using pretzel logic trying to make the 14th Amendment, Section 3, of the Constitution into something it isn’t. It is merely a continuation of Article II, Section 1, which gives us the requirements as to who is eligible to run for president.
Not until the Civil War did the question arise as to what would happen if someone violated their oath of office to uphold the Constitution and now wants to run for president. This is exactly what the 14th Amendment, Section 3, addresses. In clear language, it says essentially that once someone has violated their oath of office they cannot be trusted to not violate it again. Not everyone who joined the Confederacy was convicted in a court of law of insurrection, but they were no longer eligible to run for any office, civil or military, under the United States or any state.
The Colorado Supreme Court looked at the evidence and determined that Trump committed insurrection before declaring him ineligible. After all, why did all those MAGA hats show up in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021? When asked that question at their trial, they all said it was because “Trump told us to come.” Who stood before them on the Ellipse and told them to march on the Capitol and to “fight like hell”? Who sat in his office watching the events unfold while cheering on the slavering mob assaulting the Capitol Police for hours and refusing to do anything to stop it? He has admitted that his purpose was to prevent Congress from certifying the vote of millions of Americans. Some of the same Republican Congressmen who were seen running for their lives on Jan. 6 later called it a normal day at the Capitol. How many times did we hear them say some version of “are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?”
Enough!
Dan Dennis
Orcutt
This article appears in Feb 15-25, 2024.