In mid-December of 2023, the state of Maine ruled that Trump must be barred from being allowed on the state’s presidential ballot for the 2024 election.
They are the second state after Colorado to make this historic decision, one that hasn’t been made since the civil war, and may be the start of a trend amongst some of the more Democratic states to prevent a second Trump term.
The argument made by the states’ governments is that due to the actions of Donald Trump in the lead up to and during the January 6th insurrection of 2021 invalidates him from the ballot in accordance with the 14th amendment of the United States Constitution.
This amendment states that a person can be blocked from the electoral ballot if they had engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States’ government.
The amendment was passed by Abraham Lincoln and this specific provision of the amendment had not been incited ever before, only illegally before the civil war in an attempt to prevent Lincoln’s presidency in the south.
A question is asked at this point, is this decision a win for the rule of law and the preservation of democracy in the United States, or will this decision rally Donald Trump’s supporters even more fervently than before, bringing political chaos once again to America, and paving the way for a second Trump term and, as Trump promised, nationwide martial law on “day one”.
While Trump is scheduled for court in March of this year, Biden’s numbers have never been lower and it seems that Biden is almost guaranteed to not be president for a second term, which means a potential independent or a Republican presidential candidate may snatch the presidency from the current president.
It is too early to know how the 2024 election will pan out, though the odds are not looking good for the incumbent Joe Biden, but we will see if Maine’s decision to follow Colorado’s example will be the start of a mass expulsion of Trump from state ballots across the country, and the fallout of those decisions which we may feel for many, many years.
owen • Jan 11, 2024 at 1:52 pm
very nice
Tristan Hutchinson • Jan 11, 2024 at 1:28 pm
this was really informative, and it was cool to see some in depth research it would be interesting for it to have gone more into the controversy though.