
Despite hand-wringing mainstream media coverage calling it "controversial," the most remarkable aspect of the debate over whether Donald Trump should be banned from accessing the ballot is how one-sided it is. Once you start reading about legal arguments on each side, what becomes swiftly clear is there is no good argument for keeping Trump in the race. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, as both Colorado's Supreme Court and Maine's secretary of state have correctly decided, is clear in its language: Anyone who has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against" the U.S., after taking an oath of office, is forbidden from running again.
There's no use pretending Trump didn't engage in insurrection in his two-month campaign to overthrow an election. Even Trump's lawyers don't really contest that he did it, which is why they resort to a nonsensical argument that the presidency isn't an office of the United States. This is an obviously dumb argument from people who are out of ideas.