• Funderpants @lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    Fascism is in its legal phase in the US. Any fascist with sufficient party support in congress cannot be held accli table for an insurrection.

    Incredible really

      • Funderpants @lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        Not exactly, liberal justices discented in specifics of who could be expected to make a determination. Agreed it can’t be a single state, disagreed on federal courts, other bodies making a determination. Conservative justices decided it would be only congress.

        In any case, they all seemed to find it can’t be the states based more on consequences than law and unanimous decisions don’t reduce the slide to facism any more than a split decision will.

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          The 14th section five says it’s congress that makes the decision of eligibility.

          That said, how an election is run is up to the states. They’re already making determinations and kicking people off, anyhow, weird how that happens.

          • Funderpants @lemmy.ca
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            4 months ago

            I mean, it doesn’t really say that but it is now the law of the land anyway.

            In my lay person opinion, they wrote the decision to get the result they wanted.

            Which during questioning seemed to be: 1)they don’t want the states to do it because of the potential consequences 2)they don’t want to decide each case themselves (the SC) 3) they don’t want the Federal Court circuits to decide since it would filter up to the SC (see 2)

            So according to the majority the only body left to decide is congress. Which of course has the consequence of ensuring it will never actually be done.

            So if you want to do an insurrection in the US, just make sure to have a personality cult built up around you and enough members of Congress living in fear of you and your violent supporters to stop congress ever enacting consequences for your failed attempts.

          • SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Section 5 says Congress can enforce, not quite the same thing. There’s actually precedent that you don’t need an act of Congress for section 3 to apply, and nothing in text that says you need it.

            • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              If you look at the non-confederate who got nipped by the 14th, the process was he got elected as a representative, and they then held a floor vote that determined he was ineligible due to an espionage act conviction.

              Yes, he was already ineligible the election happened before the conviction, but that was the process for unseating him.

              I don’t know how that would apply to a POTUS (probably take both houses of congress,).