Shenna Bellows was sworn into her first term as Maine’s Secretary of State on January 4, 2021. Two days later, a tornado hit a county fair in a red state, swept up the locals and dropped them all off at the US Capitol where, still drunk on fryer oil and sweating nicotine, they tried to overthrow the US government.
I don’t know a lot about Bellows other than what’s posted on her official biography (and that she lost a Senate race to forever-incumbent Susan Collins in 2014), but I have to say, her straightforward explanation for excluding Donald Trump from Maine’s Republican primary ballot was refreshing at a time when America is testing the boundaries of common sense when it comes to due process.
As a quick primer, Maine law says the secretary of state is required to referee and settle challenges to nominee petitions for presidential primary elections. There were three challenges filed in connection with Trump’s nomination in Maine, two of which simply argued that he engaged in an insurrection and therefore can’t seek office. Another challenge argued that because Trump “expressly stated that he won the 2020 election,” he can’t run again — that because, at least in his mind, he’s already won the presidency twice, Trump’s reached the term limit. (That’s not exactly how it was presented, but that’s the comedic version).
Bellows didn’t buy the term limit challenge, but she reached the only conclusion that people who haven’t committed themselves to i) the perpetual suspension of disbelief, ii) the perpetual suspension of democracy or iii) both, can possibly reach on the other two. Here’s what she said:
The record establishes that Mr. Trump, over the course of several months and culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power. I likewise conclude that Mr. Trump was aware of the likelihood for violence and at least initially supported its use given he both encouraged it with incendiary rhetoric and took no timely action to stop it.
Mr. Trump’s occasional requests that rioters be peaceful and support law enforcement do not immunize his actions. A brief call to obey the law does not erase conduct over the course of months, culminating in his speech on the Ellipse. The weight of the evidence makes clear that Mr. Trump was aware of the tinder laid by his multi-month effort to delegitimize a democratic election, and then chose to light a match.
Period. No other interpretation of the events in question (and the plot which preceded them) is possible. If you have a different interpretation, you’re in thrall to a man who’s been described by some of the people closest to him as an incurable grifter, an unconscionable sociopath and a veritable black hole of buffoonery.
Maybe you’re genuinely duped and determined to stay that way. Or maybe you have a vested financial or political interest in a second Trump presidency. Either way, you’re in the grip of a dangerous idiot who, at times, exhibits signs of illiteracy and (sorry, not sorry) retardation.
Every single day, Americans are subjected to round after nauseating round of ceaseless litigation (both formal, in real courts, and informal, in the court of public opinion), defined by excruciatingly insulting attempts on the part of Trump, his lawyers and surrogates to suggest that somehow, what everybody witnessed with their own eyes, didn’t happen. Or that it wasn’t what it was. Or that Trump didn’t say what everyone heard him say. Or even that Trump isn’t still saying the things he’s saying.
A majority of Americans (including millions of Republicans and Independents) just want to move on from this sordidly absurd chapter in the country’s history. That majority is slimmer than it should be, but it’s a majority nevertheless.
Trump had his days (plural, with some exponent to account for the distinct possibility that Trump’s the most litigious human being on the planet) in court. The notion that a man we all know, deep down, is guilty of most of the charges leveled against him (including, in the opinion of many, several different kinds of treason) should be allowed to appeal judgements aimed at preventing him from mounting a second assault on the republic to a high court which owes its conservative majority to Trump, and where one justice is married to someone who was in touch with key actors in the first assault on the republic, is so manifestly insane that it’s hard to understand how anyone can seriously consider leaving the matter to that court.
Just hours after the Maine decision, California said it won’t disqualify Trump. Last week, after the Colorado Supreme Court judged Trump ineligible, Gavin Newsom called ballot challenges in California “a political distraction.” “There is no doubt that Donald Trump is a threat to our liberties and even to our democracy,” Newsom said. “But in California we defeat candidates we don’t like at the polls.”
Newsom (and he’s hardly alone) seems oblivious to the inherent contradiction. Someone who’s demonstrated a reckless disregard for democracy can’t be a candidate for a democratic election. Trump isn’t just the antithesis of the process he’s trying to participate in, he wants to use that process to put himself in a position to eliminate it.
I’ve heard, from some conservative commentators, that Trump’s supporters actually don’t want to overturn democracy. That they were simply fooled by Trump and that on January 6, 2021, far from trying to usurp the republic, they thought they were defending it. Of course, Confederate soldiers would’ve told you something similar, but that’s beside the point.
Nobody’s arguing that the county fair crowd shouldn’t be allowed to vote (well, I’d argue that, but I’ll save that for another time). The argument is that regardless of what the “stop the steal” crowd thinks about the 2020 election, they were fed a lie by a man who was prepared to leverage their gullibility (indeed, sacrifice their lives) in the service of seizing power.
Maine’s Bellows seems to understand how simple this is. Or how simple it should be, anyway. “I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment,” she said, in her decision. “I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”
That straightforward logic should be employed everywhere, and not just to keep Trump off the ballot. It should also be employed to incarcerate him before he does any more damage. This isn’t something that can be left to the Supreme Court, nor Congress. Because… well, because Trump has commandeered both to a greater or lesser degree. That in itself is a testament to imminent national peril.
This is not necessarily just the case of what it was, this is an ongoing insurrection.
Exactly. That’s the thing. We’re literally countenancing a live attempt to install an authoritarian. This isn’t a matter for the courts anymore. It’s a matter for America’s national security apparatus.
Trump refers to the people incarcerated after January 6 as hostages. I somehow see that as a simple admission on his part that insurrection is ongoing.
Trump absolutely had the obligation under the Constitution to ensure a peaceful transition of power. That obligation includes taking any actions or using any words necessary to fulfill that obligation.
Even though the words “peaceful transfer” do not actually appear in the Constitution- the Constitution clearly implies a peaceful transfer of power by specifically stating that “We the People” are to hold a free and fair election and that the winner of that election will become the president. Pretty straightforward.
Election law further provides for counting and resolving legal challenges to the ballot before that transfer. If election law was the problem (which I, personally, do not think it was) then the time to have dealt with that was before and not after an election.
I don’t see how the Supreme Court could decide in favor of Trump- but we will see. However, if it starts to appear that the Supreme Court will decide in favor of Trump- I am going to have to strongly consider going 100% into gold.
I agree, a fair SCOTUS would have to rule against him, but since during his term Trump and the GOP (barring a decision on Garland for months), provided him the opportunity to purchase the most biased court in our history. He owns them and they will twist our shining Constitution into a pile of scrap on his behalf.
The Trump supporter apologists may as well be Jonestown apologists at this point. The people who have witnessed the lies, lived by Trump’s double standards, and will vote for him no matter what he says or does; are in a cult. If you feel sorry for them, well you’re not alone, I pity anyone who has their life destroyed by a cult. However, this cult is enormous, organized, and dangerous. Stop making excuses for them. They have made the choice to be in the cult and no amount of excuses or sympathy will help them get out. These people are friends and/or family but they are still dangerous, and they absolutely should not be allowed to dictate how we (non-cult members) self govern.
“… a dangerous idiot who, at times, exhibits signs of illiteracy and (sorry, not sorry) retardation.” could very easily apply to congress as well. So, it’s up to SCOTUS. Since the Koch network has endorsed Nikki Haley, I guess we’ll see who owns the most supreme court judges. Thus has it always been, and thus shall it ever be.
I’ll be very curious to read your argument that the county fair crowd shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
As I understand it, democracy is based on the principle of an informed electorate. Perhaps your argument will address the question of what defines the term “informed” in this context?
The founders we’re correct in only letting the informed vote.
Yes, they were.
Allow me to suggest Thomas Frank’s most recent polemic, The People, No: A History of Anti-Populism, in which Frank (What’s the Matter with Kansas?) brashly suggests that the people would be voting more “correctly” if both Democrats (the party of FDR) and Republicans (the party of oligarchy), in league with Wall Street, hadn’t sold them out over the last half-century.
https://www.amazon.com/People-No-Populism-Fight-Democracy/dp/1250220114
I wholly agree with Thomas Frank’s thesis as you stated, that the Trump voter populism is a symptom. Trump had been friends with Jack Welch of GE (see: https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Broke-Capitalism-America/dp/1982176423 ), which I remembered enough to be gobsmacked that Trump could be viewed as someone who could bring outsourced jobs “back” to the US.
I detest Trump for more reasons than I could list at he moment.
But due process is a thing. Kicking his ass in November is what’s best for democracy.
How much due process is enough, do you reckon? Is it ever enough? Because sometimes it seems like if you have enough money, you can just “due process” your way through life, and as long as you can pay the lawyer bills, the bill for your words and actions never comes due. Imagine if Trump were a Muslim community leader and the Capitol rioters were angry Muslim men. Where do you think he’d be right now? Not on any presidential ballots.
I’m so damn tired of this constant, obsessive, pseudo-religious adherence to a set of cherished precepts to the complete and total detriment of common sense, particularly when the dynamic only applies to rich white men. This long ago passed the threshold marked “common sense demands you stop here.” This same bullshit applies to rich white men pretty much across the board. As a well-off white man, I can say, definitively, that if you’re male enough, rich enough and white enough, you can pretty much just say and do whatever you want to do short of, you know, “shooting someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue” and trust that in a worst case scenario, it’ll take years for anyone to make anything stick. There are rare exceptions (SBF, for example) but for the most part, rich white men get to exploit the system in what may as well be perpetuity. Of course, that’s not surprising, because look who designed the system: Privileged white men. I just thought we’d be past this by now. If a guy walks up to me on the street and shoots me in the groin in front of 200 onlookers and five closed-circuit TVs, we don’t need a trial. And believe me: If the shooter were Black (or, God forbid, Hispanic) we wouldn’t have one.
Do note: Trump’s attorneys did in fact argue at one point that Trump could shoot random civilians in the street (in keeping with that silly Fifth Avenue remark he made) with no consequences while he was President. That actually happened. They actually argued that. In an actual court. That’s who/what we’re dealing with here. So I ask, again, is there just no limit? Is there no limit whatsoever on this guy’s leeway? I mean, for fuck’s sake: Trump’s not even all that rich. If this is the leeway he gets, I guess Elon Musk can just blow up whole blue cities with missiles, inject himself with youth serum and appeal the case until everyone who remembers dies of old age.
And all of that’s to say nothing of the fact that ~30% of the country seems ok with installing Trump as a dictator. Out of that 30%, about half are too undereducated to understand why that’s incompatible with democracy. That’d be the same half who didn’t see anything strange about it when Trump appeared to refer to George Washington’s air force while speaking at that pseudo-military parade he (Trump) held. And think about all the Americans who’ve been brainwashed by Fox News and Russian propaganda on social media. How do you select a jury knowing you’re going to get some of those people in it? And, again, to the point in the article, how in God’s name can we trust that this Supreme Court will make an unbiased call? If you believe that, I don’t know what to say. They (SCOTUS) are going to find a way to avoid deciding this and whatever that way is will keep him on the ballot. And part of that decision making process will involve a Justice whose wife was in real-time, direct contact with Trump’s closest advisors while they planned and schemed about a way to prevent the transfer of power. This is totally crazy. Beyond the pale insane. We’re so lost in the trees that we can’t see the forest burning.
Did you see mfn’s comment (and book recommendation)? We did not get to having all these Trump supporters without decades of increasingly underwhelming job and pay conditions. Note that I agree with your assessments of both Trump as potential dictator and of Biden/latest middle east conflict. The US needs better quality political candidates.
“This isn’t something that can be left to the Supreme Court, nor the Congress.”
Then who, if not the voters? A plurality of State Sectretaries?
Secretary Bellows pronounced Trump guilty of insurrection when his trial doesn’t start until March. If you don’t see a problem with that then we will have to agree to disagree. It reeks of cancel culture to me. And to what end? As you say, SCOTUS will block it. Trump gets a free play of the martyr card. He loves all headlines and the increased engagement and donations that they bring. And meantime the Red Blue divide deepens. Nothing good to see here imo.
No, Barry, I don’t see a problem with that. Do you know why I don’t see a problem with it? Because we all witnessed him do it on live television. We don’t need a trial. We all saw it! The whole world saw it. It was broadcast in real-time to the whole of humanity. Jesuuuuuus Christ. What’s wrong with everyone?
You didn’t answer my question.
Walt, I agree with your point about obsession with due process. It’s like religion to many Americans. Most of us aren’t confronted with it on a daily basis and don’t know how to think of it.
To your point, if you have enough financial resources, you can more easily navigate it. But that’s not an entirely bad thing. American bliss is found on a day to day basis as we blissfully go forth in ignorance of the full meaning in American democracy. It’s a matter for lawyers, mostly.
The abundance of Americans find legal matters to be highly abstracted. We need lawyers because most of us are not lawyers. But Donald Trump is going to spend the rest of his life getting educated the hard way about the limits of freedoms in American democracy.
Netflix currently feature a narrated, colorized series of WWII video that includes some very vivid clips of 10s of thousands of German citizens enthusiastically (rabidly?) participating in Nazi/Hitler rallies. Whatever it is that enables people to behave that way is still very much with us.
Hitler could have been stopped. Putin could have been stopped. And it seems likely that we will look back and shake our heads that Trump could have been stopped.
Not many seem to perceive a threat.
Or just don’t want to. Uncle Derek’s Second Civil War Predictive Index (SCWPI), based on the price and availability of 9 millimeter ammo and the availability of short barrel shotguns, is nowhere close to the red zone levels leading up to the 2020 elections.
That reminds me ….
The man was openly selling pardons, but what’ya gonna do, right? (He sells everything — he can’t help it, (wink wink). Interested in a piece of his mugshot suit?).
At this point, the deference and presumption of innocence has gone from nauseating to existential enough for me to consider moving countries or at least entertain gun ownership/training in the event of future moron cosplay in the streets. Never thought my American Experience was going to have a chapter involving fleeing and/or gunplay, but good times.
Dear Colleagues in Verbal Arms,
Fabulous dialogue as we all watch Trump inescapably swirl to his political demise down the dark wet end of an irresistible legal toilet. Jack Smith will have it no other way. The only question is whether the Republican Party will survive in any way that retains a semblance of credibility.
Happy New Year! Peace and good investment returns to all!
Dave