Thread by @SethAbramson

Ruling for a Trumpist, the Trump appointee said “we’re at a moment in which interest in free and fair elections is at its peak. [My job is to protect] the soapbox, ballot box and jury box. When those fail, that’s when people proceed to the ammunition box.” cnn.com/2022/03/04/pol…

(PS) The Trump-appointed judge somehow managed to rule *both* that the disqualification clause related to all rebellions in the United States—past and future—*and* that the 1872 amnesty for Confederates was a prospective amnesty for all future rebellions.

Think on that a moment.

(PS2) The problem is that in his first finding he confirmed the Founders knew how to write language that applied to all rebellions past and present; with his second finding, he said that *even when the Founders specifically only referenced Confederates* they meant all rebellions.

(PS3) In fact, only one or the other of those two things can be true at once. If the Amendment covers all rebellions past and present, and the 1872 amnesty applied only to Confederates, any rebellion post-dating the Civil War would still subject be to the disqualification clause.

(PS4) The idea that an event-specific statute could eviscerate an Amendment to the Constitution is legitimately insane, but it permits the result a Trumpist would want—a continuation of the premise that there’ll be no consequences in the United States for staging an insurrection.

(PS5) I just want folks to understand that when our democracy collapses, it will have been foreseeable and will be because we did nothing about Trump, we did nothing about the coup plotters, and we did nothing about insurrectionist politicians.

A few foot-soldiers got probation.

(PS6) In a different country than the one we have, Madison Cawthorn would be out of politics permanently—and thanking his lucky stars every single day that the mercy our justice system systematically shows to rich white men and virtually no one else kept him out of a prison cell.