Republicans Are Grasping At Straws To Promise Retribution If Trump Is Taken Off The Ballot

The threats of retribution for Trump’s disqualification are specious, but that’s kind of the point.

After former president and current GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s disqualification from the ballots in Colorado and Maine for engaging in insurrection on Jan. 6, it didn’t take long for Republicans to respond with retributive calls to do the same to President Joe Biden, among other Democrats.

“If Democrat states are saying we’re not going to let these Republicans run, you bet you’re going to see the same thing happening from Republican states. And it’s not good,” Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a Republican, told NBC on Jan. 5.

“Seeing what happened in Colorado tonight … makes me think — except we believe in democracy in Texas — maybe we should take Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas for allowing 8 million people to cross the border since he’s been president,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, suggested in December.

The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on Feb. 8 on Trump’s disqualification from the Colorado ballot by the state’s Supreme Court under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That constitutional provision bars anyone who engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding an office under the United States, and was originally adopted in the aftermath of the Civil War. At least six of the briefs filed with the Supreme Court in support of Trump, including one submitted by the Republican National Committee and another by 179 GOP members of Congress, feature similar warnings of retribution.

These briefs argue that the Colorado Supreme Court adopted overly broad definitions of “insurrection” and “engage in” that could be applied to Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and numerous Democratic members of Congress in a retributive fashion.