January 18, 2024 - A Washington State Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit that challenged Donald Trump's right to appear on this state's presidential primary ballot. The lawsuit was based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, enacted in 1868 a few years after the end of the Civil War.
The presidential campaign of 1860 was contentious. There were literally two Democratic parties and two Democratic candidates. The northern Democrats, represented by Stephen Douglas, supported popular sovereignty, that is, the right of any new states to decide by local elections whether to be slave or free. The southern Democrats, let by John Breckinridge, promoted chattel slavery everywhere. Abraham Lincoln ran on the Republican platform of not allowing the extension of slavery westward as a matter of federal policy. A remnant of the Whig Party combined with the Constitutional Unionists and ran on the platform of holding the country together.
Across the Atlantic, factions within the British Empire expectantly watched and waited. The Empire's loss of its American colonies after the War of Independence still smarted. Since that war's end, Britain had supported various armed insurgencies against the United States. As part of the War of 1812, the British military sacked and burned Washington D.C. Like the break-up of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War (and like the current NATO proxy war against the Russian Federation), many in Europe saw great business opportunities in the anticipated disintegration of the United States. Although England had previously banned slavery within its own boundaries, it continued to trade manufactured products in exchange for cotton, agricultural and raw materials imported from the slave-holding Confederate States. Thus England in the early 19th Century continued to benefit from the southern states' continued use of slave labor even though slavery was no longer legal in England itself. At the onset of the American Civil War, European vultures circled over the anticipated cadaver of a ripped-apart United States, just as today, Western vultures circle around Russia and China.
The 1860 campaign rhetoric was nasty. Violence was wide-spread, particularly in the border states of Missouri and Kansas where "popular sovereignty" advocates, abolitionists and slave-holders fought pitched battles. Plantation owners from the South brought in armed partisans to intimidate local residents and to stuff the ballot boxes. Kansas and Missouri experienced years of bloody fighting preceding the "formal" Civil War. Though a minority at the time, abolitionists simultaneously pursued a vigorous religious and moral campaign against slavery. John Brown's attempted slave revolt at Harper's Ferry, Virginia in 1859 was a direct result of the pre-civil war. John Brown was consequently hanged for trying to incite an insurrection.
Ultimately, in the 1860 national election, Lincoln won a resounding victory in the Electoral College... but he took just 40% of the popular vote nationwide. Soon after the election of Abraham Lincoln as President, several prominent (but not all) southern military officers and politicians abjured their oaths of allegiance to the Union and defected to the Confederate States of America. Multiple states formally withdrew from the Union even before Lincoln was inaugurated.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was squarely aimed at disqualifying from public office those military officers who, before the Civil War, had sworn allegiance to the United States and subsequently violated their oaths (such as Robert E. Lee).1 It was also directed at various formerly powerful southern politicians in the U.S. House and Senate who, before the Civil War, had run legislative "interference" on behalf of the cause of slavery and who promoted its expansion. The point of Article 3 was to prevent those who had abjured their oaths of office from resuming their military or political careers as though they had never defected to the Confederacy. Perhaps, in part, it was also aimed at the likes of abolitionist revolutionaries like John Brown. Had the 14th Amendment existed one hundred years earlier, then all those who signed the Declaration of Independence, the first five presidents and nearly all of the nation's founders would also have been barred from holding public office, for they were insurrectionists all.
Lincoln won a second term as President. By this time, Lincoln had evolved into an abolitionist, more or less. In his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, Lincoln advocated "malice toward none with charity for all" as the formula to "achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
Lincoln was assassinated just 41 days after he announced a policy of national healing. Lincoln's assassination put the kibosh on any notion of a post-war policy of reconciliation. And, indeed, there was no reconciliation, not as to the unreconstructed South nor as to slavery which continued de facto, if not de jure. As William Faulkner observed in his novel Requiem for a Nun: “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
Article 3 of the 14th Amendment has been used once before to block a candidate's run for office. Specifically, the Woodrow Wilson administration used it against Victor L. Berger of Wisconsin. Berger was a socialist member of Congress. His opposition to the U.S. entry into World War I led to his conviction under the Espionage Act and that, in turn, led to his political disqualification under Article 3 of the 14th Amendment. Victor Berger's 1918 conviction was eventually overturned three years later by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Wilson administration also prosecuted and imprisoned another prominent socialist, Eugene Debbs, under the same Espionage Act, thereby crippling his presidential campaign (as intended).
Mr. Trump is currently being sued or prosecuted in at least 90 cases. By November 2024, the number of lawsuits and prosecutions against him will have likely doubled. Whether you are a Trump supporter or hater, there is no doubt that every single one of these cases is politically motivated election interference. As the examples of Victor Berger and Eugene Debbs clearly demonstrate, however, prosecuting your political opponents and interfering with the electoral process is as American as apple pie.
Well, maybe rotten apple pie.
In fact, the United States shares august company with many other rotten apple pie baking "democracies" that routinely prosecute, imprison (or assassinate) unapproved political candidates. In Senegal, Ousman Sonko was imprisoned by the current government and disqualified from running for public office because of his support for "insurrectionary movements." In South Korea, the ruling party has sought to prosecute, disqualify and imprison its main political opponent, Lee Jae-myung, on corruption charges. In Ecuador, no sooner did President Rafael Correa (he who granted political asylum to Julian Assange) step down, then his "elected" successor immediately prosecuted Correa for corruption and sentenced him in absentia to prison (thus barring Mr. Correa from ever again running for public office). In Pakistan, former Prime Minister Imran Khan (who voiced strong opposition to American foreign policy) was removed from office in a constitutional coup. Mr. Khan was soon thereafter prosecuted and jailed by the pro-American Pakistani faction, thereby hamstringing Mr. Khan's election campaign. In Ukraine, that stalwart "democracy" championed by the U.S. and NATO, elections have been outright canceled. In Germany, new parties that might challenge the dominance of the mainstream Social Democrats, the Christian Democrats and the Green Party are routinely infiltrated, slandered and taken down.
As for the European Union - that latest attempt by Europe's ruling elites to re-create the Holy Roman Empire (it's likely the 5th such attempt, by my count) - its central ruling body, the European Commission, is not popularly elected at all.
The Washington State case dismissed this month seems to have been a copycat of the Colorado case in which, as you know, Mr. Trump was disqualified from the Colorado primary ballot.
Unlike the Colorado Supreme Court, the Washington State trial court judge determined that she had no power to grant the requested relief. Consequently, the Washington judge dismissed the case "without prejudice." This simply means that another lawsuit could be brought later to disqualify Donald Trump from the November general election ballot, depending on how the U.S. Supreme Court resolves the appeal from the State of Colorado.
It's noteworthy that in both Colorado and in Washington, the petitioners' pleading was specifically to remove Donald Trump from the Republican primary ballot, not the general election. The net effect, of course, would be the same - to disqualify a candidate from the primaries is tantamount to disqualifying that candidate from the general election, too.
Nevertheless, the fact that the petitioners in both Colorado and Washington targeted the Republican primary ballot makes one wonder who, exactly, was trying to get Mr. Trump out of the race, Democrats... or, sub silentio, the Republican donor class... or both.
My guess... and it is just a guess, albeit one well informed by reading the political tea leaves... is that, a lot of well-placed and affluent Republicans would shed crocodile tears over the ballot disqualification of Donald Trump. Privately, many apex Republicans - the Bush/Cheney/Koch/Nikki Haley war hawk faction, for example - would loudly cheer the removal of Donald Trump from the Republican primary.
Ultimately, these primary removal lawsuits are hyped to rile up the crowds sitting in the bleachers. The better question is: why does the State involve itself in any Party's primaries?
In some countries, like Italy and Germany, political parties come and go quite often. In some countries, political parties are actually state-subsidized as a matter of law. If a political party meets certain qualifying thresholds, and if it does not advocate the overthrow of the state, then it can receive taxpayer support. Whether that is or is not a good idea (I rather think it is a bad idea), the United States was mothered in insurrection and revolution. Thus, the American system is purely a free-market, non-state subsidized model of politics. Just like our economy.
Well, not really.
The reality is that we have neither a free market economy nor free market politics, just the facade of both.
In any event, the Republican and Democratic Parties are private organizations. They are NOT governmental bodies. At least, they are not supposed to be appendages of government. Nothing in the Constitution mandates a so-called "two party" system. In fact, "parties" are not even mentioned in the Constitution. Nor, for that matter, is "democracy."
Not long ago, Washington State had multi-layer caucuses, similar to those in Iowa.
I participated in several Washington State Democratic Party caucuses. These were raucous caucuses! And they were fun! Citizens came to the community meetings if they cared to. We verbally tussled, passionately argued and, ultimately, we voted in small neighborhood sessions who or what to support in the general elections, and who or what to oppose. Not everyone came to the caucuses, of course. But anyone who wanted to, could. The caucuses were shining examples of grass-roots politics (even though, as I recall, the precinct leaders sometimes had a hard time accurately tallying the votes if the natives, somehow, backed a candidate not favored by the party muckamucks).
Precisely because they were raucous and fun... the State of Washington eliminated caucusing and, instead, implemented (easier to control) vote-by-mail primaries. The grass was thus mowed down to its roots, democracy be damned.
The word "democracy" is a magic talisman in the Western World. It conjures an illusion of a mythical United States of America that simply isn't, wasn't and never will be.
Whenever people start to bellyache about protecting "our democracy," I ask myself, exactly whose democracy are they talking about, and from whom are they trying to protect it? Probably me. Possibly you.
Back in the beginning, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist debate over whether even to adopt the Constitution made one thing clear: a majority of the Founders were absolutely opposed to anything but the semblance of popular governance. The initial federal structure adopted in the new United States of America (well after the conclusion of the American Revolution) was anything but a "democracy." The right to vote was severely restricted and whole demographics - including women, those without property, slaves and Indians - were simply excluded. The President was not elected by popular vote, but by the House of Representatives. The Senators, in the beginning, were not popularly elected either. Senators were appointed by the various state legislatures. That didn't change until 1913.
Worldwide, there have only been a few, short-lived or uniquely structured democracies. Ancient Athens, as a mini city-state, was a "democracy," kind of, sort of, for a short while; but only the male, land-owning Aristocrats had the right to vote. Slaves, women, Helots, and poor folk were SOL in Athenian "democracy," just as they were in the beginning of the United States. In fact, "democratic" Athens looked a lot like an oligarchy, and it busied itself ostracizing, banishing or "suiciding" those people (like Socrates) who got sideways with the ruling cliques. Does this remind you of any post-modern state you know?
There is still a semblance of grass roots democracy in New England's old town hall meetings. As bracing as they are, town hall meetings are small and local affairs. Likewise, Switzerland's "direct democracy" allows many significant federal issues to be argued and decided directly by referendum. Practically speaking, however, a Swiss-like state with a total population smaller than many cities is probably the outer limit of a functioning direct democracy. Direct democracy requires that you actually know - and trust - your neighbors. Direct democracy requires that you know how to listen as well as yammer, that you have continuity in the community, that you have personal roots backwards in time and an expectation of local rooted-ness into the future. Few, if any, of these qualities exist in 21st Century western digital states where (by design) nomadism, fear and distrust are the rule and not the exception.
The technology absolutely exists to have direct democracy in America and anywhere else. We can vote on everything of importance - whether to fund endless wars in Ukraine, Palestine, Yemen, China, Serbia, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, etc., etc., etc.; whether to ban natural gas stove tops or ICE automobiles; whether to increase or decrease immigration; whether to go to the Moon or to improve our public education. All of this could be decided by simply voting with the click of a button on your cell phone or computer, no Congressional representatives necessary. Likewise, all party members could similarly vote in a national primary (not paid for by taxpayers, of course) simply by pushing thumbs up or thumbs down buttons on almost any digital device.
But we know this is a pipe dream.
Direct digital democracy will inevitably (if not immediately) be corrupted, Trojan-horsed, hijacked, spoofed, spammed, compromised and outright falsified. The only difference between direct digital democracy and the weird system we currently have is that direct digital democracy will be manipulated faster and more efficiently; and those who engage in election interference will be even less accountable than today.2
Ultimately, how we select candidates for elected office begs the question, what are these political parties, anyway? One thing is certain: they are not what their names suggest. The Democratic Party is not democratic and the Republican Party is the party of the plutes, not the republic. The party names are more about a narrative, a brand and marketing shtick than anything real.
The French political-economist Thomas Piketty has (rather verbosely and statistically) described the phenomenon of the modern day party: they nowadays mostly represent the interests of the ownership elites (think World Economic Forum meeting at Davos, Switzerland), or they represent the young, educated and upwardly mobile strata of society that once was described as the bourgeoisie. This was how the Democratic Party, under Bill Clinton's leadership, abandoned the "working class" and embraced the same crowd of monied people as the Republican Party. The Labour Party in the U.K., too, under the tutelage of Tony Blair and now Keir Starmer, has done the same. No political party, says Mr. Piketty, represents the "working" or "middle" classes anymore. Mr. Piketty is correct.
The likely Republican Party nominee for President will be Mr. Trump. Top tier Republicans despise him as much as they disdain his blue collar supporters. But the proles’ votes are absolutely essential for Republicans to regain power, though the party big-wigs might hold their noses. Mr. Trump, for his part, is a multi-billionaire egoist whose campaign, in a mirror image of the Democrats' 2020 election strategy against Donald Trump, consists mostly of not being Joe Biden.
Mr. Biden, the likely Democratic Party nominee for President (for the moment), is running as the conservator of the Green Earth, the champion of reproductive rights, people of color, women, children and democracy. But, the Biden Administration, in its madly inflationary policies and its pursuit of War, War and More War has devastated the Earth, ruined the world economy, turned the U.S. into the No. 1 producer and exporter of fracked fossil fuels, undermined democracy at every turn, and, through its genocidal complicity with Israeli war crimes, killed tens of thousands of Gazan women and children. So much for the reproductive rights of Palestinians, I guess.
Political primaries are strange.
They are somewhat like Igor Stravinski's 1913 ballet the Rite of Spring: a tightly choreographed dance of pagan rituals combined with election-time pep rallies. Like Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, our primaries culminate in human sacrifice -- ours -- at the mock temple of democracy, while nationally dancing ourselves to death.
When the Rite of Spring premiered in Paris in 1913, the audience hated it. They started to scream and hoot and throw things. They rushed the exits to get away.
Watching today's American primaries unfold, I feel the same way.
Here is Section 3 of the 14th Amendment:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. (underlining and italics added)
Digital, that is, computer and telecommunication technology, is not inherently a tool of the status quo, nor is it more corruptible than any prior technological development. In fact, it promised the opposite. But whereas plutocracy has learned to think ahead and immediately move capital to hijack any newly emergent strategic technology (starting with the Intellectual Property laws), the plebes never noticed the technical, political, social and economic capture. And, for the most part, they still haven't.