What are Trump’s prevarications and peccadillos compared to the prospect of real political progress? Why continue to dredge up January 6 so many years later? That’s what my friends ask me when I express dismay at President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House next year.
Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election and disenfranchise 81 million Biden voters, while unfortunate, didn’t succeed, my friends who voted to put the former president back in office tell me. My fixation with Trump’s behavior just shows an inability to perceive the greater good.
Are they right? If over the next four years the administration reduces inflation and illegal immigration, appoints conservative judges, thins the federal bureaucracy, and initiates other policies should I regret challenging Trump’s eligibility to run for highest office and rejoice our efforts came to naught?
Nearly a year out from the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. Anderson, a number of us involved in the case are reflecting on our choices. I lost friends and business contracts, and was blacklisted, censured, and threatened with violence. But for the glass of wine a supporter bought me, the experience was a total loss.
I’m not the only one. Litigants, lawyers, and justices have all experienced harassment since taking the case. I was just too naive at the time to see it coming.
Monica M. Márquez, Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, recently spoke about how she lost sleep over the decision’s potential consequences to her safety and that of her family, coworkers, colleagues, clerks, and neighbors. She nevertheless joined the majority because “it was what the law required.”
The law, in this case the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, forbids anyone from holding office who took an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection. More than a year ago, six of us Coloradans, four Republicans and two unaffiliated voters, sued the Colorado Secretary of State to uphold the law by keeping an ineligible candidate off the 2024 ballot. A trial court judge, after hearing weeklong testimony from both sides, concluded Trump did indeed engage in insurrection when he fomented violence to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in an attempt to stay in office. The Colorado Supreme Court concurred and unlike the trial judge, a majority of justices determined the text of the law applied to former presidents.
Several months later, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ruling. While the justices did not contest the finding of insurrection, they ruled that states could not disqualify federal candidates from their ballots. Instead, Congress would have to act. Case over and not just in this instance; partisans in Congress rarely hold their own party members to account. The insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment has been effectively repealed.
There will be no justice. Special counsel Jack Smith dropped felony charges regarding Trump’s attempt to overturn the election. January 6 rioters will be pardoned come January. Members of Congress who echoed Trump’s false election claims or cowered in silence will return to office. Perhaps Tucker Carlson will be invited back to Fox News to replace one of the pundits headed to the president’s cabinet. Pillow magnate Mike Lindell may even have banner sales year.
Also, Trump’s 2020 insurrection did not inspire a rash of losing candidates refusing to concede or new allegations of massive election fraud. Democratic institutions appear still intact. The Stop the Steal signs are in the trash. The ends have sanctified the means. The act accuses, but the result excuses to paraphrase Machiavelli.
Reflecting on the Trump v. Anderson case, Colorado stateswoman and lead plaintiff Norma Anderson recently told the Denver Post, “We did not succeed. But we gave notice to everybody.” Notice of what I can’t help wondering. Maybe we should have gotten a t-shirt.
Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer.
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