In Texas, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick told Fox viewers that Joe Biden should be taken off the ticket in 2024. That’s because the Colorado Supreme Court said Donald Trump couldn’t be on the ticket because of the XIV Amendment.
Patrick isn’t by himself.
Republicans in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Texas are all trying to get the current president taken off of their votes. Biden won’t be on the Democratic primary vote in New Hampshire because of how things work, not because it’s the law.
The fact that four states are trying to get rid of the right to vote for a living president shows that the political divide in the US is getting bigger and more reactionary.
Section 3 of the XIV Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, also known as “the Disqualification Clause,” is what Colorado used to decide not to let Trump run for 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.
There was reason for the Colorado Supreme Court to think that Trump did take part in the uprising on January 6. Because of this, Trump cannot run for president in their state.
The Republicans in other places say that if Trump can be left out, then Biden can too. Their argument is that the current immigration problem at the southern border and the supposedly short-lived corruption in China are examples of uprising. They say that Biden should not be able to run if that is the case.
Governor Greg Abbott of Texas has talked a lot about “chaos” and “an invasion” at the border between Texas and Mexico. Along with the Texas GOP and some Texas Democrats, Abbott has criticized the Biden administration for how badly it handled the issue.
Abbott and other people who don’t like Biden say that the administration’s policies, especially those related to immigration, have made it easier for people to cross the line illegally. They say it calls for tighter border security, and the government has somewhat given in to this demand.
Along with that, the House Oversight Committee, which is run by Republicans, is still looking into Biden’s possible impeachment because of his alleged role in his son Hunter’s business dealings in other countries. There have already been calls from experts on removal that this investigation is “the weakest” attempt to remove a president in U.S. history. This is because real proof has never shown up, even though the GOP said there would be a “mountain” of it (it seems like a short mountain).
As things stand, the lawmakers’ efforts to remove Biden from the ballots in their states aren’t just a way to get back at him.
Their action is a sign of opposition to what they see as a major change in the country’s government and rules for running things. Of course, this adds to the growing and angry partisan split that started in 2007 and is only getting worse. Pew found that there was a lot of division when George W. Bush was leaving office and before Barack Obama took office.
The issue at hand is not new. The issue has been building up for many years.
There is a strange situation for Democrats right now. In real life, they are still a conservative party, even though their policies have moved to the left over the last 30 years. Their only kind of liberalism is “classical liberalism,” which is the same thing as “traditional American conservatism” for most of our history. The idea that the purpose of America was to embody Enlightenment ideals. Literally, the ideals of the Enlightenment are republicanism (as a form of government, not a party) and conservatism (in terms of the economy).
The Republicans are having their own issues. A party that is becoming more divided and is also getting more new members than it has since the New Deal. In terms of which candidate to back, the GOP has to draw a line in the sand right now:
The “MAGA” group, which still supports Donald Trump. They mostly came about because of the Tea Party movement and the (non-)libertarian impact of Randian ideas.
The more traditional and reasonable group, which the other group calls “RINO” (Republican in Name Only), is mostly not behind Trump. They are the more standard Republicans in the government. They usually know how the sausage is made and are ready to work with people from the other side of the line to make it.
The latter are a little more open to personal safety nets than they are to corporate safety nets, and they lean slightly more liberal than their MAGA peers.
This is not the case with MAGA. They follow the failed policies of the Tea Party: they want to lower business taxes, give more subsidies, and hope that the “trickle-down” theory of economics finally works (as George H.W. Bush would say). They are also more authoritarian when it comes to making conservative beliefs the law, just like the Tea Party did, even though they called themselves libertarians. LINO, maybe?). The free market and morality in the legislature meet.
There is a big difference between the two that has to do with human responsibility. For short, RINOs believe that people and businesses should take responsibility for their actions. They can do what they’re doing as long as no one breaks the law. A lot of people in that group also want better protections for consumers and have become somewhat more open to tighter financial rules.
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MAGA, on the other hand, doesn’t like people being responsible for their own actions; they’d rather ban certain things than let people make their own decisions. After that, they may have the personal duty that’s left over. Their economic policies encourage businesses to avoid responsibility, which is a big reason why that group wants to change tort law.
This is important because the drama on the White House lawn has its roots in the fact that our political system is becoming more divided along ideological lines. And that doesn’t even talk about the rise of the real left (because Democrats are seen as center-conservative) in the U.S., which has reached levels not seen since the New Deal and is dealing with a lack of real representation on Capitol Hill.
Anger, slurs, and cries of “I know you are, but what am I?” can be heard all over the country because of this.
It doesn’t matter if any of the efforts to remove Biden (or punish him) succeed or fail. What matters is the act of the biggest game in democracy.
What happens in the next year’s elections will affect politics for a generation to come. This could be the election season where big changes happen in how people vote, even in places that usually vote Republican.