When it comes to disqualifying political opponents from the traditional democratic process under the pretense that they were involved in an “insurrection,” there are no limits to how far a ruthless and unprincipled Democratic Party will go.
In a sobering warning that the use of the 14th Amendment to ban Republican frontrunner Donald J. Trump from state ballots is only the beginning, legal scholar Jonathan Turley said that efforts to prevent the former president from running are a “slippery slope” that could threaten American democracy itself.
The George Washington University Law School professor and Fox News contributor appeared on “The Brian Kilmeade Show” where he explained that the chaos at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, was more of a riot than the overblown claims that it was an actual “insurrection” with a serious chance of toppling the government.
“The biggest problem for me is that the 14th Amendment, Section Three, deals with rebellion and/or insurrection. This was neither. This was a riot and at some point, mature minds have got to kick in here and say, look, he has never even been charged with incitement, let alone rebellion and insurrection,” Turley explained. “But more importantly, putting aside the fact that he hasn’t been convicted, this wasn’t a rebellion or insurrection. I know that the other side has really tried hard to portray it that way, but the American people don’t even view it that way. Polls indicate that the public views this as a protest that became a riot. It doesn’t excuse what happened.”
“We’ve had violent protests in this country. There were violent protests when Trump was inaugurated. And at that time, there were Democratic members that voted not to certify Donald Trump. Were they also rebellious? What they’re suggesting here is really otherworldly,” he continued.
“If this is going to be the new theory, it’ll be replicated, it’ll metastasize throughout the country. I’ve got a column out in the New York Post talking about the new effort to bar Congressman [Scott] Perry under the same theory that Democratic members of Congress have asked to bar dozens of Republican members of Congress under the same theories. That’s the slippery slope that we’re about to step on…,” he warned.
“It’s a tit-for-tat politics,” Turley stated. “And the terrible thing is that this is the most successful and stable democracy in the history of the world. And yet, after this long successful run, you have blind advocates today trying to introduce an instability in that system that could destroy it. This is the type of theory that can destroy a democracy.”
In his new column, Professor Turley went into detail about the effort to also ban Rep. Scott using the same dubious legal theory.
…However, these challenges are coming largely from Democratic activists like the effort to bar Rep. Perry from the ballot. https://t.co/LJiIm56WUa The greatest support for the effort remains within the Democratic party, according to polls. That is why a defense of Democracy…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) January 5, 2024
“If the challenges work, there is no reason they can’t be used unilaterally against any candidate (and without any criminal charges, let alone convictions). It is instantly both self-executing and self-satisfying. It would put the world’s most successful democracy on a slippery slope to political chaos,” Turley wrote.
“That is why the Supreme Court needs to take up this issue and put this pernicious theory to bed once and for all,” he added.
That Democrats will continue to hammer the “insurrection” hoax as a key to the door of total power was evident by President Joe Biden’s nasty rant marking the third anniversary of Jan. 6, a day that has been used as an American version of the infamous Reichstag Fire to eliminate their political enemies.
Biden: We’re the only nation in the history of the world built on an idea. We have never walked away from the idea. And I promise you, I will not let Donald Trump and the Maga Republicans force us to walk away now pic.twitter.com/BMIhLjrUIZ
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 5, 2024
Biden’s demagogic speech was reminiscent of the type of rabble-rousing typically heard in early 1930s German beer halls and like the Democrats’ use of the Civil War-era provision to ban the political opposition, has no place in a functioning democracy.
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