"politically fraught with peril"

Sen. Lisa Murkowski said that it may be legal for state courts to disqualify former President Donald Trump from running in the 2024 election, but that doing so would be “politically fraught with peril.” https://t.co/1eLC8XvjAX

— Anchorage Daily News (@adndotcom) December 23, 2023

So imagine, Arnold Schwarzenegger decides to run for President and he's getting good polling results.  But someone sues to keep him off the ballot because he wasn't a natural born United States citizen.  

The Constitution says clearly:

"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."

Would Sen. Murkowski or any of the others talking about "fraught with political peril" say we shouldn't enforce the Constitution because it would be "fraught with political peril" to do so? 

Well that's exactly what is happening with Murkowski and others who want to keep Trump's name on the Colorado ballot.   As President, he, at the very least, gave aid and comforted those trying to overthrow the election of Joe Biden by storming Congress and stopping the ratification of the election. (And we don't even know who all he showed or sold secret documents to yet.)

Fourteenth Amendment  Equal Protection and Other Rights

Section 3 Disqualification from Holding Office

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Trump's denials are no different from the denials of any accused criminal who tries to twist words and find legal loopholes to avoid the legal consequences of their actions.  

Does he really have to be tried for insurrection?  We all watched it live.  We watched the Jan 6 committee reviews of video tape and listened to witnesses, many who were Trump appointees who were with him in the White House on January 6.  

We've heard the tape of Trump demanding of the Georgia officials: 

"All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have," Trump says, according to audio of the call. "There's nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you've recalculated."

He's a known liar and he knew he lost Georgia and was demanding the Georgia officials overturn the election by finding him the votes he needed.  

So what is this "political peril" everyone is so worried about?

First, I'd ask, when did we start inserting political consequences into court proceedings?  Yes, it's happened, but it isn't supposed to.  It's the rule of law, not the rule of the mob that courts are supposed to uphold.  

Second, what crystal ball does Murkowski have that tells her there will be political peril?  No one knows what will happen in the future.  So this is just conjecture of what might happen.  Sure, there are lots of Trump supporters who likely would be very angry.  

Propagandists on the Right will tell Trump's supporters that this was an illegal prevention of Trump's right to run for office.  Is that a reason to ignore the Constitution?  Absolutely not.  This is a phantom peril.  Of his most rabid supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 

"Approximately 723 federal defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences for their criminal activity on Jan. 6. Approximately 454 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration. Approximately 151 defendants have been sentenced to a period of home detention, including approximately 28 who also were sentenced to a period of incarceration."  

"Approximately 714 individuals have pleaded guilty to a variety of federal charges, many of whom faced or will face incarceration at sentencing."

(DOJ, December 2023)

I'm not saying Trump supporters won't make lots of noise, maybe do damage, and generally try to reenact another January 6.  They have already made death threats against the  judges on the Colorado Supreme Court.  Trump isn't calling on his backers to stand down.  But we have police.  We have the National Guard.  We have the military if we have to put down another insurrection.

Third, if Trump is on the ballot and loses again, we are just as likely to face political peril then as now, maybe more so.  If they successfully bully the courts into ignoring the Constitution now, Trump supporters will be even more emboldened to try to prevent a peaceful transition again.  

Surely it's a better option to uphold the Constitution now and  remove Trump from the ballot now and let his various court cases play out. Let's face this speculated political peril now rather than later.     

Fourth, if the court ignores the plain language of the US Constitution and allows Trump to be placed on the Colorado ballot (and in other states if Colorado is successful in this), then we are already in political peril, we've already stumbled out of democracy and the rule of law.  The fact that we are even debating this says we are already one or more steps into the fascist dictatorship Trump has already said he would head.  

Fifth, Gerald Ford, after he became president when Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace, also feared political peril if Nixon were prosecuted.  So he pardoned Nixon.  While I think that decision was wrong - and set up a precedent for Trump to grasp at - it didn't violate the law or the Constitution.  The president has the power to pardon.  But when pardoning Nixon 

"Ford announced that he had pardoned Richard Nixon for all crimes he committed or "may have committed" while president" (Washington Post 2006)

which tells us he fully believed that an ex-president can be tried for acts committed while president - something Trump has said couldn't be done.   

Sixth, Murkowski and others have said that the people should have the final say by voting.  But no matter how much people would want to vote for Schwartzeneger or Trump, the two are constitutionally ineligible to be president.  We don't vote on whether to ignore the Constitution.  

"Political Peril" here is the bogey man the Right (and some on the Left) are using to justify ignoring the clear language of the Constitution.  Remember, this fight is for the man who spent years spreading the lies about Obama being born in Kenya and not being a natural born US citizen.  

Trump's whole strategy is to cause distrust of every US institution and then to say that "I alone can fix it."   The idea of "political peril" is part and parcel of his game plan.  Democracies don't make exceptions for bullies who threaten violence if they don't get their way.  

That is exactly what is happening here.  Arnold Schwarzenegger is NOT a natural born US citizen and is not qualified to run for president. 

Donald Trump supported an insurrection to overthrow the vote of the people and maintain his position as president even though he lost the popular and electoral college votes.  And he isn't qualified to run for president.  

Let's face whatever peril lies ahead now instead of next November when that peril might reappear if US voters vote for Biden over Trump once again.  Let's stop that peril now rather than let the Trump machine work to more effectively falsify the election results than they did in 2020.