the deep game: CO strikes trump off ballot.
an internet cat puts on his thinking cap and asks "cui bono"?
as those of you not currently living in ice caves without internet or news have likely noticed, colorado courts took the extraordinary step of disqualifying donald trump from their 2024 presidential election ballot through an extremely aggressive and quite probably an absurdist interpretation of some US law holdovers from post civil war political jim crow.
at core here lies sec 3 of the 14th amendment.
but the bill of rights is silent on how one is to determine who has engaged in such insurrection or rebellion. it punts to congress.
and congress did this establishing a law allowing both civil and criminal route to removing “undesirable” politicians regardless of their popularity.
this law went into effect in 1870 to make sure that only “the right” sort of people could hold office in the south (in ominous augury, an obvious and specific targeting of political enemies) and was repealed and then replaced in 1948.
amusingly, this is the sort of law the american left would have HOWLED about in post apartheid south africa. there is an awful lot of power in being able to brand your opposition “insurrectionists” and bar them from political life.
but trump has not been found guilty here and obviously, innocent until proven guilty remains the law of the land. for the aspiring legal beagles, more in depth insight into the CO rulings HERE (from jarvis).
for me, the bottom line seems to be:
this idea is pretty fanciful upon its face and reeks more of stunt than substance. but i also keep catching a whiff of deep game subterfuge.
whatever one thinks of trump (and i am no fan as i have often made plain) this idea that somehow jan 6 was “an insurrection” much less one led by donnie is an absurdity.
no one tried to overthrow a government and the attempts to make this (quite truly) near completely peaceful protest look like some sort of civil war or lawlessness (when it could as easily lay claim to seeking to support law and act in accordance with election integrity) look preposterous especially after those in government who not only abetted but aided the burning of american cities in 2020 and the creation of actual alleged lawless zones like CHAZ were piled with laurels and sent home scott free. this is obviously a form of partisan selection bias of soviet proportions.
it’s also not terribly interesting as an issue to explore.
rather, i’d like to delve into “why?” because this action seems, at first pass, to be a terrible idea for team donkey in terms of electoral politics and team donkey runs colorado and appointed 7 of the 7 judges who ruled on this (and still managed only a 4-3 margin) to overturn a lower court ruling that “sure, trump is an insurrectionist, but this does not apply to the presidency.”
why was this case brought and decided in this fashion? to what end? cui bono?
the obvious first pass occam’s razor is “there is no plan.”
longtime gatopal™ bachman and i were chatting with some pals about this and bachman asked:
“Could it not just be a bunch of doofus judges who want to see their name in the paper?”
and, of course, this is certainly possible. unitary actor theory where “the left” is one big thing with one mind and one goal is, of course, and absurdist oversimplification that often leads to awful conclusions. no group or movement is monolithic. is this just a bunch of judges who got trump derangement syndrome and acted out of some sense of personal mission/desire?
maybe, but to my mind this seems unsatisfying and incomplete especially as it leaves some key players out of the analysis, most notably the plaintiff, “Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington” (CREW) whose name alone pretty much tells you “inversion and gaslighting coming” with a thoroughness reminiscent of “the moral majority” or other such whoppers as “diversity, equity, inclusion.”
CREW is headed by noah bookbinder
who is the very model of the modern major general in the apparatchik army of partisan political players. he’s tied into everything, an obama crittier to the core and deeply plugged into the brandon administration. (source)
“According to Lynch, HSAC has met numerous times - where they've produced various reports for Mayorkas ranging from "disinformation" to supply chains.”
so, um, yeah. this did not fall out of a bright blue sky. this issue was framed, raised, and pushed forward by a hyper-connected hyper-partisan who has been in or around the core of the political machine currently ascendant since the obamie era.
that smacks of more than happenstance. it smacks of agenda.
the question is “what might that agenda be?”
let’s break out the thinking cap and ponder.
many seem to be falling back upon the idea that this is to boost trump in the primary and that the case is intended to lose but to energize the trumpista base.
while i believe this is indeed an agenda, this seems a needless and dangerous manner in which to pursue it. trump is already way ahead and the idea that there are some “real polls” that show otherwise seems fanciful/aspirational. i’ve heard some of the more ardent desantis fans claim this is to help trump get ahead of ron in some key states, but i struggle to buy it. RDS got quite neatly run off the road after taking endless fire from both sides. if mr mar a lago winds up off the ballot in place like CO (and CA who seems curious about joining the fun here), then it boosts RDS. seems a needless risk to run if DT is already winning. overall, it has to be more than this. i’m not buying it as sufficient or even desirable.
that said, it might dovetail with another plan.
if we want to consider the real longer 8D chess game that a truly clever player might engage in, consider the manner in which several pieces currently sit on the board.
this case made specific reference to issues of “does this apply to the presidency?” even if this case is currently a loser at SCOTUS because there is no conviction, simply getting a ruling that it does, indeed, apply to the presidency (especially from a court dominated by team elephant) would be a HUGE and perhaps under-appreciated win. it’s the kind of square you give up without realizing it will lose you the game.
jack smith has donald in court. what if he were, once this ruling of applicability were settled, to file a superseding indictment with insurrection/rebellion charges. it becomes a sort of “fool’s mate.” if you skate on a framing of “this could have applied to you, but did not because you were not charged and convicted” you might think you won, but in fact, you just got set up for a sucker punch that will take you out entirely.
in this light, the idea snaps into focus. if you can boost trump in a primary while setting up the rugpull of setting the stage to yank him off the ballot in swing states in the general by getting the precedents, framings, and salients set, it could be a rope a dope to make ali envious.
obviously, this would constitute true political mayhem and the idea of subverting a US election in this fashion would engender outright chaos and a descent into a form of banana republic (and possibly induce outright rebellion) but again, that does not seem implausible/impossible from an agenda standpoint.
the desire to subvert, break, and pick a fight with much of the american system and structure seems endemic to many in this crowd and goading “the right” into something overt enough to crack down hard on with real violence and extreme intrusion by the intelligence-censorship complex so ardently put in place and extended under covid, i’d discount the ideas of “these people are wreckers” or “these people seek totalitarian political domination” lightly. consider the possibility that they’d burn it all rather than hand over power and get dragged into the light.
it is far fetched? maybe. but i must admit a certain elegance to it as an explanatory thesis for what’s been going on and the axis of alinsky-marxism-authoritarian impulse advocates just such paths to power. obviously, this would also be a huge win for china. US civil war hands them the world. and they sure do seem keen on US elections of late (and anxious to spread the idea that its russia we should be worried about which seems like classic misdirection and false flags). and their ties to the current administration look not only /sus but perhaps about to finally be dragged into the open.
what makes me suspect this plan is, in fact, in play, is the no lose aspect of it. it’s a profound fork as a move. knight threatens king and queen. the politics is just too perfect to be an accident.
if this case goes to SCOTUS and they decide that this law does not apply to the president (or strike it down entirely) it’s still a HUGE win for team donkey. because that will engage and enrage THEIR base and they can now parade this as “the terrible dangers of a right leaning/politicized supreme court” and demand “party over candidate” voting to make sure we get SCOTUS back in balance or even to take up once more the FDR style “court packing” ideas they did not quite get to catch on. they get so say “orange insurrection bad! trump the tyrant!” then push for tyranny to oppose these hobgoblins.
this is exceedingly potent politics, especially post roe v wade’s overturn and i endlessly marvel at the elephant’s inability to realize what a staggering loser abortion is as an issue for them. there are an incredible number of one issue voters on this topic and they are not going to care what trump thinks, has said, or will do. the fact that he’s not actually anti-abortion will not matter. the judges he appointed were.
these voters will jump to the donkeys and vote for whomever is wrapped in blue. i know people want this not to be true, but it is. soccer moms, centrist women, many centrist men: gone. the vote’s over. you got hammered. red wave kneecapped again all the way down ballot. it does not have to be logical or reasoned. i have friends who are sane, reasonable, smart people but are so adamant and rabid on this issue that if it even seems like it’s on the ballot, they’d vote hugo chavez over any republican and not even care that hugo is dead.
this finds consonance with many other biden/SCOTUS scuffles from affirmative action to student debt. discrediting them (or at least this bench) would seem a core desire for them.
so, that’s my read, such as it is. as ever, i claim no special knowledge and reserve the right to be spectacularly wrong, but my assessment of this board is that this was a really clever fork move that’s looking several moves ahead, a practice at which DT is notoriously terrible. i think they’re outplaying him and with this issue out in the open and basically unfixable now (its too late to turn it off, once you’re forked, you have no good choices) the stage is set to either sweep him out in a general or rally the troops against him with appeals to “retake the court.”
it also appears the knives are ever more out for president brandon and the fears from the donkeys that he cannot win a general are mounting so perhaps they need a fix in or perhaps they are setting up gavin for the switcheroo (or a role as veep which would amount to same), which remains my base assumption.
this is going to be one of the ugliest elections in american history, certainly the ugliest in modern times.
sorry guys, wish i had better news, but this is going to be a gloves off streetfight and the folks involved are playing for keeps without regard to what they lie about or what they break.
it ain’t over.
Given the lack of enforcement on Jan 6, The repeated recorded attempts by Trump to increase security, the denial by Democrats, and continued attempts by democrats to create a narrative of "insurrection" to disqualify others they don't like... the only people that appear to be guilty of such a coup are the Democrats.
“If Trump wins we all hang” - HRC ... they know, they know we know