Trump’s run for the White House will test America’s Rule of Law
In a setback this week for Donald Trump, the Supreme Court of Colorado ordered his name struck off the ballot in the American state’s primary polls for his Republican party to pick its candidate for next year’s presidential election. This has cast a shadow on the candidacy of the former White House occupant, who was held ineligible for federal office under the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Brought in after the US Civil War, its Section 3 bars from such positions people who took an oath to uphold the Constitution but “engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the country or gave “aid or comfort" to its enemies.
Trump now looks set to take this matter to the US Supreme Court. If America’s top court agrees with Colorado’s, it would be curtains for his bid to regain power legally. Yet, it is not an open-and-shut case, court proceedings may find only weak insulation from the political dynamics at play, and it is hard to foresee how this story will pan out.
There are similar lawsuits in other states too, looking to keep Trump out of the race. Rival Democrats backing President Joe Biden for another term may be watching all this unfold nervously, aware that Trump’s massive support base and strong showing in opinion polls gives the ex-president a good chance of victory if he stays in the contest. It did not take a court ruling for Democrats to portray Trump as a danger to democracy.
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