If so, then why?
He can, because there’s no law against it. Probably nobody thought there’d ever need to be!
As an outsider that’s pretty wild. So you can’t buy a firearm but you can be president and control them all. Like what?
Actually the thought is if the government can just imprison you to stop your candidacy, they have too much power.
Thus they can continue to run.
I would say just don’t break any laws then, but laws can change and people are terrible.
Edit: Pretty sure you’re all downvoting a misunderstanding.
I’m saying I get why it’s a thing because people would convict their opponents. Not that I was actually saying well don’t break any laws.
Sure, but a corrupt government can fabricate evidence to keep their enemies silenced.
Look at Russia and their treatment of Alexei Navalny.
Or just regular ass black people in America.
Or the topic of this post
Might be a reasonable argument if you didn’t have 76 years of his rotten behavior as precedent in processing the decision made by a jury of his peers…
just don’t break any laws then
A very naïve idea :-(
Remember, there is a mechanism that prevents criminals from winning elections and holding offices, it’s the one that’s the best one in a democracy. The voters.
It’s not good to give governments the power to decide who does and doesn’t deserve to hold authority, it is good to let voters decide if someone’s crimes are relevant to the election.
Sadly, it seems many Americans do not agree with me that trump is not suitable for office. Hopefully enough do that they decide not to vote for him
We’ve got these things called “social media” that are built expressly for the purpose of influencing people to buy more stuff (literally in the name: influencers). And if it can get people to part with their money, you can be sure the same tools can be used to get people to vote against their own interests.
We thought the internet was a tool to spread democracy. We were wrong. The Internet is a tool used to undermine democracy, so long as people using the Internet are not strongly inoculated against organized interests, foreign, and domestic.
Who thought the intent was to spread Democracy?
The Internet’s been both very good and very bad for Democracy. Without the internet, most people would be at the mercy of CNN or Fox to explain all the horrible things Donny Two Scoops has done.
The concern of the founding fathers was that one state would have political reasons to rush a trial and get a legitimate candidate convicted of a crime in their court. If the conviction was legitimate, it was supposed to be handled by the Electors of the Electoral College.
If the conviction is legitimate, the Electoral College has ways to shut that down.
Our lack of laws around the POTUS are a glaring. It’s insane that a judge can preside over a case where the defendant is a former president who appointed them. Like Judge Cannon and 3 members of the SCOTUS.
Don’t forget, it’s not like he has a right to the presidency. The president is voted in. So technically speaking the people decide if the felonies make a difference or not
Also, you can’t vote in many regressive, discriminatory states but they’d like up in their Klan hoods to vote this felon into office as there is no restriction on becoming president. Rules for thee
Cant vote either
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My man Eugen Debbs ran from prison in the early 1900s. He was thrown in prison for speaking out again the war (the first amendment wasn’t much protection back in the day).
It is good that he could run, since he was a political prisoner. He advocated for the common man against the corrupt institutions.
Agreed. There are situations where it totally makes sense to have a felon run for president. This isn’t one of them
But the kicker is that he isn’t allowed to vote right? New York restore voting rights after you have completed your sentence if I remember correctly.
He’s a Florida resident now, but I believe they also take away the right to vote for felons until their sentence is complete.
Florida… HAHAHAHA, this is effin’ to good to be true… in Florida you risk lose your voting rights FOREVER!!!
I find it wild that a felon loses their right to vote, but they could run for office. So he could run for president, but he can’t vote for himself. 🤨
A felon also loses their 2nd amendment rights.
That’s one less vote for him, at least
If a convicted felon loses their right to vote, they should not be allowed to run for president.
They would make protesting Israel a felony so fucking fast
And if he wins again, he’s going to Pardon everybody who buys one from him. Including himself. Because there’s no law against it, and nobody thought that there ever needed to be for that either.
He can’t pardon himself for this one, it’s a State level crime, not a Federal one.
He can appoint two new members to the Supreme Court and then have them rule that Trump, as President, is immune to being prosecuted or held responsible for any state or federal crime but like Bush v. Gore it isn’t a precedent and doesn’t apply to any other President.
Keep in mind that the founding fathers were guilty of what would have been considered a lot of grave crimes by England, which was formerly the jurisdiction that applied to them.
So they probably wouldn’t have had a huge appetite for blocking political rights of criminals given their recent standing.
Ha, fair point.
You’d think the bad publicity alone would be enough to destroy any chance of election. You’d think.
Not when he has been creating a narrative since 2020 that he was the real winner of that election and all these court cases are just designed to try and stop him from being President.
His supporters have bought the premium subscription to this narrative, so nothing is going to change their minds. In fact, the more court cases there are, the more support he gets.
Even though going after him for his alleged crimes is the right thing to do, I actually wish they’d just let him fade into obscurity instead. Because all it has ended up doing is helping his campaign.
Well then you’re just letting him win. He’s still going to do his thing and get supporters. Convicting him gives some amount of validity that he’s doing something wrong. Unfortunately he got his hands on a lot of gullible people before someone better could, so we can’t change their minds no matter what we do. Hopefully making his crimes so public will make those not fully converted less likely to buy into his cult.
Our best hope is that “undecideds” realize that it’s not a good idea to vote for him. Gotta get the lead paint chip eating fence sitters to wake tf up.
But his supporters don’t do any such thing as “thinking.”
Haha, if only
Bad publicity is relative.
The “bad publicity” when he is an odious asshole? His base loves that, they think they all should be able to say that stuff out loud.
Legal problems? Well they firmly believe it’s just a conspiracy to witch hunt and every case serves only to fuel their persecution complex
Anything else? Lies by the liberal media, they see the truth on Fox News. When Fox News even reports on it, then they shun them and off to newsmax or just their favorite Facebook posts.
You’d think…
…but what does the government have?
Yup! Because that’s the law. The original idea was to keep people in power from being able to outmaneuver their opponents by having them arrested. That was back when politicians and corporations had some level of public accountability though.
The Constitution spells out who is eligible to run for President, and does not say criminals are ineligible. It’s as simple as that.
I do find it odd that you guys put so much emphasis on a document written in a time nothing like today.
Like surely it should evolve, but I can see how that would go right now so it’s probably for the best.
We do amend the Constitution from time to time, but it takes a 2/3 vote in both houses of Congress, plus ratification by 3/4 of states. so it’s quite a high bar.
Just because an idea is old, doesn’t mean its a bad idea. And we do have mechanisms for modifying the constitution. We just don’t do it often because it requires a lot of agreement.
I think we have more enlightened and more informed views now than 270 years ago is alls I’m saying.
Just the right to bare arms is such an example. Weapons are completely different these days.
I exercise the right to bare arms as often as possible, and my farmer’s tan is proof of that.
That’s the problem. No people ever think they’re the unenlightened ones. Society changes but not always for the better.
The Constitution is a safety rail to protect us from ourselves.
We don’t have parliamentary supremacy. What we have is what we have. A rough equivalent is that (assuming you’re a UK citizen) the Lords could still veto bills and the Commons couldn’t force the issue.
Yeah it’s because Americans are fucking terrible at governing.
The vast, vast majority of Americans do not care about their elected officials. Most do not even know who they are, and just vote based on party affiliation or don’t vote at all. Our government structure also fundamentally doesn’t work, and we would be far better served adopting a parliamentary system like the rest of the developed world, but nobody cares enough to do anything. Our courts are corrupt thanks to Donald Trump, gerrymandering means our elections are hardly fair, the list goes on.
America has an apathetic government that accomplishes very little and is easily captured by hostile forces because it is exactly the level of government Americans are willing to put in the effort for.
We do too trust me
Yep, cause the constitution doesn’t forbid felons from running for president.
It forbids them from ever voting again though.
The Constitution doesn’t do that, that’s up to the states. Also, you don’t have to be eligible to vote to be the president. The US Constitution outlines the only eligibility requirements for the president.
So…in theory a state could ban all its constituents from voting for presidency?
The fourteenth amendment would probably bar this, but it’s never been tried.
Yes. And he’s not the first to run a campaign from prison (though he likely won’t go to prison for the 34 felonies. Prison is extremely rare for those kinds of charges. even if he wasn’t trump.)
Cohen did time for the exact same crime
This is incorrect.
Cohen plead guilty to tax evasion and campaign finance violations
Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records
Not only is the substance of the charge different, Cohen’s crimes were federal where Trump’s conviction is state.
the charges that trump is guilty of, the sentencing very, very rarely includes prison time. (because we live in a fucked up country where you can get away with anything as long as you’re a business.)
yes, felons can campaign for president and be elected. technically it’s even legal for the president to be locked behind bars while serving.
The sad part is that despite being a convicted felon he will most likely never see the inside of a jail cell.
I wonder if the secret service would need to be locked in the cell with him.
Yes, and it’s important that felons be able to run for president. Were that not the case, a corrupt enough system could just disqualify anyone that would seek to oust it.
This is true.
But, it must also be pointed out that that’s another case of good faith actors getting fucked by assholes. In theory this sounds good, like free speech and tolerance for all. But when you are dealing with criminals and sociopaths those virtues get used against you.
Yes. The constitution is actually shockingly specific about what the qualifications are. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
No other qualifications can be considered, barring a Constitutional Amendment.
That constitutional amendment being the 14th
So far that hasn’t really been tested in court, and when it has (Trump v. Anderson) it’s not been upheld in that way.
Look I’m not saying I like it. I’m saying it’s not really that straightforward.
Where does it say that no other qualifications can be considered? It certainly lists a lot of qualifications that are required, but doesn’t say that it’s an exhaustive list.
Those are not the minimum qualifications. They should be read as “anyone who meets them is eligible” rather than “no one who fails to meet them is eligible.” The Rehnquist court found that states could not add a felony exclusion for Congressional candidates in the 1990s and that is broadly considered to extend to the Presidency as well. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1994/93-1456
If the constitution doesn’t say it, it’s not typically intended to be assumed true. The constitution doesn’t say that felons can’t be president - so we can’t assume that the states or congress could pass laws forbidding them from being president. It specifically says you can’t be president if you’re 34 or were not born a US citizen. If the writers wanted to exclude felons, they would have said so.
The congress can still impeach Trump for a third time even though he’s not in office, and if the Senate convicts, they can ban him from ever holding public office again.
Yes, and there’s precedent that he can still run even if he’s imprisoned.
Debs ran for president in the 1920 election while imprisoned in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.
The current record for number of US presidental votes received while in prison is about 1,000,000. Eugene V. Debs is the record holder, and that election was in 1920. Trump just may beat him this year. There is no law that says you can’t be president while in prison.
Question: How the shit does the US legal system claim that “High crimes and Misdemeanors” disqualifies someone from being President, but 34 FELONIES is ok?
Answer: because the people in charge don’t care.
I’m glad he’s been convicted but any idiot can see that this should disqualify him.
I just don’t get how someone convicted for ELECTION FRAUD can still be a presidential candidate
YEAH THAT TOO (I’ve honestly lost count of all the things that should have been disqualifying by now)
It’s because the mechanism for adjudicating the high crimes and misdemeanors resides in the legislative branch. They have to adopt articles of impeachment and then convict and remove the President.
If any state crime felonies could automatically disqualify a candidate it would create perverse incentives that should not reside within the power of one state, because of the abuse potential. For example, Texas could drag Biden into court on felony jaywalking charges.
Convicted felons can’t vote so he can’t vote for himself. 🤣
I was thinking this too. All felons should sue for their right to vote on precedent that a felon if, elected president, could sign in laws.
Not necessarily. New York law is that felons are only kept from voting while incarcerated. And since FL law refers to the other States for their residents, Trump will be able to vote for himself, unless he is behind bars. I doubt he sees time in a cell, but I’d love to be wrong.
Yes. The “why” is that in 1787 it was unthinkable that a felon would be elected President by the Electoral College. The electors wouldn’t bother voting for a felon.
