Well, that was interesting. I just spent the morning listening to the supreme court arguments on whether Colorado could exclude trump from the ballot. I predict that the court will reverse the Colorado decision, will take away that particular right of states to determine their electors in national elections,and will not address whether trump engaged in insurrection.

    Justice Scalia said that the constitution has provisions within it that allow for changing the text of the document, which is true.  We can create amendments if 34 states can agree.  I have come to believe that our constitution contains within itself the seeds of its' own destruction, because sociologists will tell you that like tends to like, which is why we have "red" states and "blue" states. Never the twain shall meet.  We can't even agree that women should have equal rights to men in this country. There will never be another constitutional amendment.

    The fact that we even differentiate members of the court using political adjectives is de facto evidence that the court is a political body, but I think that what differentiates  a liberal justice from a conservative justice is that the liberal tends to look at how the constitution applies to life today and takes the wording more like the pirate code , "as sort of guide lines.", and the conservatives say the words, as in biblical texts , are fixed and immutable, and  they, the textualists, are the sole arbiters of what those words mean, or what they think the writers meant when they wrote them. the I have arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Scalia was right. I have become a textualist, but I ignore anything but the words themselves. I cannot put myself into the mind of a dead person. As much as I hate to admit it the United States is destined, like the Soviet Union, to dissolve. We are oil and water and will never mix until we are faced with an outside threat sufficient to wipe us out as a people.

    Of the three people arguing before the court, the solicitor general for Colorado was the most concise and forceful. From her presentation I understand that the constitution gives each state the right to determine how they select their electors for federal offices, and how they set up their voting procedures. Those procedures are, however, subject to some federal laws which prohibit excluding certain classifications of Americans from the right to vote.  There are regular news reports that  cover what one state or other us doing to make voting "safer", i.e. prevent fraud, or make it more difficult for certain groups of citizens to vote. These voting regulations come before courts all the time. The regulations in Colorado allow for an individual to petition the state to remove a candidate based on a federal law, only after a trial, which was held .  She pointed out  that trump was afforded all the legal remedies open to any defendant and he willfully chose not to avail himself of those remedies.  He was found guilty of insurrection.  The fact that no federal case has been brought against trump on the charge is more a testament to  politics rather than a refutation of the evidence. A person charged with a crime and who offers no defense is not absolved of the results of the trial. The Solicitor General for Colorado pointed out that each state has procedures for judging whether its' own state government follows its' own rules in determining the status of a candidate, accepting that all fifty states have differing statutes. If a state can formulate rules that allow it to use vendetta against opponents, then lets have at it and enjoy the chaos. Are we really that crazy? Some think a dictator is just what we need right now, not just any dictator but trump.  Ask the Germans or Italians or Cambodians or Ugandans how that worked out.  

   The conservative side of the court is worried about what the consequences will be of finding for Colorado.  Taking trump off the ballot in Colorado will allow Alabama to take Biden off the ballot in revenge, resulting in a mishmash of federal ballots. Ah! the chaos, what a lack of national conformity! Well, they had no compunctions in overturning 50 years of abortion rights conformity, resulting in a huge chaotic mess affecting the lives of millions of Americans. The fact that they are even looking at consequences shows the hypocrisy of their textural approach.  Nothing matters but the words. That is the only basis for any decision. So now the argument is whether the 14th amendment includes the president. Is the president of the United States an officer of the state. Duh!  The idea that the framers of the amendment did not specifically name him as subject to exclusion means that they had some reservations. These people are making pure speculation as to what was in the minds of the writers. Is the president the COE  of the United States? yes! did he attempt to prevent the peaceful transition of power? Yes! ( Whether or not the vote count was legitimate is a whole separate issue.)He had and used the full weight of the judicial system to address that issue and it failed. In Bush V. Gore in 2000, the decision of the court was accepted, with reluctance, by the opposition.