Liberal groups have filed lawsuits in Colorado, Minnesota and other states to bar Trump from the ballot, citing a rarely used constitutional prohibition against holding office for those who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution but then “engaged in insurrection” against it. The two-sentence clause in the 14th Amendment has been used only a handful of times since the years after the Civil War.
Because of that, there’s almost no case law defining its terms, including what would constitute an “insurrection.” While people have argued about whether to call Jan. 6 an insurrection ever since the days following the attack, the debate in court this week has been different — whether those who ratified the amendment in 1868 would call it one.
“There’s this very public fight, in all these colloquial terms, about whether it’s an insurrection, but it really comes down to brass tacks defining what this constitutional term means,” said Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor who’s followed the litigation closely.
The fear of marking a political figure as a criminal officially, regardless of any crime they actually committed, is a pretty daunting specter over any political system.
This question is literally the sticking point on which Caesar decided to destroy the Roman Republic.
It’s probably the last great question that’s yet to be satisfyingly answered, because “just lock up the ones who break the law” will always be met with “what’s stopping their allies from making new laws and charging their enemies with breaking those?”, and “how would you even be able to enforce that?”
IMO it’s a question that can only be answered by turning to a form of democracy that severely cuts down the powers of any pinpoint individual leader, that is to say, severely cuts down how hard it is to avoid the importance of that leader becoming a shield of “you’re just prosecuting him for political gain!”
Basically, America needs to make the jump to parliamentary democracy, and a radical form of it too if Bibi’s run of things is any indication.