Maine became the second state to bar President Trump from running for the presidency when, earlier today, its Secretary of State, a left-wing activist, declared that Trump was an “insurrectionist” under the 14th Amendment.
On the merits, this is an absurd claim. What happened on January 6 was a protest that got out of hand. The principal violence, and the only fatality, was inflicted by a capitol police officer. Not a single person arrested that day possessed a firearm. Ergo, to say that it was an insurrection–an attempt to overthrow the government!–is ridiculous.
Still, it is an argument that partisan Democrats, like Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, love to make.
“Trump’s occasional requests that rioters be peaceful and support law enforcement do not immunize his actions,” she wrote. “Trump was aware of the tinder laid by his multi-month effort to delegitimize a democratic election, and then chose to light a match.”
That is a metaphor, Shenna, not a legal argument. Trump was entitled to argue that the Democrats stole the 2020 election, just as Democrats argued that Republicans stole the presidential elections of 2000, 2004, and 2016. Was Trump right? Probably not, in my opinion, but there is nothing wrong with taking legal measures to challenge the apparent outcome of an election, as many Democrats have done, some successfully.
Pundits are saying that Maine’s seconding of Colorado’s Trump ban will prompt the Supreme Court to expend its remaining political capital by putting the 14th Amendment argument out of its misery. I hope they are right.
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