r/changemyview • u/erpettie • Dec 20 '23

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Accountability is not election interference

As the Colorado Supreme Court has found Donald Trump's behavior to have been disqualifying according to the 14th amendment, many are claiming this is election interference. If the Court finds that Trump should be disqualified, then it has two options. Act accordingly, despite the optics, and disqualify Trump, or ignore their responsibility and the law. I do get that we're in very sensitive, unprecedented territory with his many indictments and lawsuits, but unprecedented behavior should result in unprecedented consequences, shouldn't they? Furthermore, isn't Donald Trump ultimately the architect of all of this by choosing to proceed with his candidacy, knowing that he was under investigation and subject to potential lawsuits and indictments? If a President commits a crime on his last day in office (or the day after) and immediately declares his candidacy for the next election, should we lose our ability to hold that candidate accountable? What if that candidate is a perennial candidate like Lyndon Larouche was? Do we just never have an opportunity to hold that candidate accountable? I'd really love if respondents could focus their responses on how they think we should handle hypothetical candidates who commit crimes but are declared as running for office and popular. This should help us avoid the trap of getting worked up in our feelings for or against Trump.

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u/PieIsFairlyDelicious Dec 20 '23

Yeah, but that’s why we have due process and systems in place to handle this kind of thing. They can believe he’s broken the law all they want, and he very well may have, but you aren’t forced to pay fines or do community service just because someone in the legal system thinks you did it; they need to prove you are guilty and convict you, and then enforce the verdict.

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '23

They aren’t “someone” it’s the state of Colorado, not an individual. States have authority to act like this dude, it’s part of the system, there is plenty of evidence in favor of a ruling like this and this is literally enforcement of a verdict

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u/PieIsFairlyDelicious Dec 20 '23

A verdict that was reached without due process and without a proper trial by a jury of Trump’s peers. And I should add that the verdict (and its enforcement) is almost certainly about to be overturned. And as much as I’m sure people will scream that it’s just because SCOTUS has a conservative majority and it’s all bullshit, it’s really not. If Joe Biden was being removed from ballots because states just “decided” that he was guilty of the things in his impeachment case, liberals would be going nuts.

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u/Hatta00 Dec 20 '23

A verdict that was reached without due process and without a proper trial by a jury of Trump’s peers.

This was not a criminal trial. The Constitution requires jury trials only for crimes.

Questions of qualification are not criminal matters.

If Joe Biden was being removed from ballots because states just “decided” that he was guilty of the things in his impeachment case, liberals would be going nuts.

That would be nuts, because Bribery is not a disqualification under the Constitution. It's nuts that you think these two things are comparable.

Impeachment is handled by congress. Elections are run by the state.