So are we just downvoting things we don’t want to hear now?

lol. Welcome to lemmy!

And the only argument you’ll get is “it’s unreasonable because I’ve come to a different conclusion.” Too many people are so cocksure of themselves that they seem almost completely incapable of understanding a competing position, or completely incapable of understanding that reasonable people can come to different conclusions about the same thing.

But I can give you a quick breakdown of the competing theories here:

The popular belief here is that of course it applies to the POTUS because it’s absurd that you would be barred from being a Congressman/Elector, but not the President. And even though Senator (and other important positions) are explicitly called out, but POTUS is not, the POTUS is caught under the “any office” part of the amendment. And because they took an oath to uphold the COTUS, they should likewise be barred.

This is the “common sense and spirit” argument (which I find reasonable) and one that does have some historical support.

A good paper on this can be found here

The counter opinion is that: Why list important positions but not the most important position? Claiming the POTUS would fall under a ‘catch-all’ in this part doesn’t make much sense. Additionally the amendment says “as a member of congress of as an officer” and there is an argument to be made that POTUS is not a officer, as we don’t elect officers (a previous SCOTUS ruling I’ve referenced elsewhere), so it doesn’t technically apply to him because he was never in Congress.

This is the “technical interpretation” argument (which I also find reasonable, even if ultimately disagreeable).