DEMOCRACY WATCHYes, Trump Is Disqualified from Office
And no, it’s not undemocratic to use the Fourteenth Amendment to keep him off the ballot: Disqualifying Trump from becoming president again under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment is well justified on legal and moral grounds, and any pragmatic concerns are outweighed by the likely benefits. Barring Trump is far from a complete cure for the problems that ail our political system. Much else needs to be done to address potential threats to democracy, and improve its functioning. But disqualifying a former president whose words and deeds prove him to be a dangerous menace to liberal democracy would be a step in the right direction.
THE EFFORT UNDERWAY IN SEVERAL STATES to use Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to disqualify Donald Trump from becoming president again raises a variety of legal, moral, and political issues. But fundamentally it comes down to this: liberal democracies often have good reason to bar from positions of vast power people whose track record shows them to be a threat to democracy itself, or to basic liberal values. Section 3—originally enacted to bar former Confederates in the aftermath of the Civil War—is a useful tool towards that end. And Trump epitomizes the sort of person who should be barred, for both legal and pragmatic reasons.
Section 3 bans anyone from state or federal office who previously held certain public offices and “engaged in insurrection” against the United States or gave “aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” Donald Trump is disqualified under Section 3 because of his attempt to use force and fraud to overturn the results of 2020 election, and especially because of his role in instigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
A president who tried to use force and fraud to stay in power after losing an election should not be allowed wield the power of office ever again. And we need not and should not rely on the democratic process alone to combat such dangers.
Trump should not be barred from the ballot if there are legal reasons why Section 3 cannot be used against him. But the legal arguments against disqualification are ultimately unsound, and most are very weak. The same goes for pragmatic arguments against disqualification.
And no, it’s not undemocratic to use the Fourteenth Amendment to keep him off the ballot.
The Stakes
BEFORE GOING INTO THE DETAILS of Section 3, let’s step back to look at the big‐picture issues at stake here: Donald Trump’s record shows him to be a menace to liberal democracy, and Section 3 disqualification is an appropriate way to curb that danger.
After losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden, then‐President Trump not only falsely claimed that he had actually won, but also tried to remain in power despite his defeat at the polls, using a combination of force and fraud to do so.
