Supremes Unite in Sanity

It’s heartening that Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the rest of the Supreme Court to unanimously rule that states can’t kick ex-President Donald Trump off their ballots via a ridiculous reading of the 14th Amendment. Whatever partisan divisions the court may hold, it has ruled by a fair reading of a law that was being abused.

Anything less than a 9-0 ruling would’ve let the left pretend it lost because its “conservative” majority was playing politics.

None of this is to excuse Trump’s behavior around the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot; it’s to say that it’s not up to state officials to decide that he “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” and so is disqualified from future office.

Allowing this would license games without end, for a downward spiral that would make every presidential election a farce. As the court put it: “Nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos.”

It’s damning of current liberal discourse that the “14th Amendment strategy” survived so long, ignoring exhaustive debunkings. It got you tons of clicks from the vast universe of Trump-haters, and lots of airtime on MSNBC and CNN: Apparently, that’s all that mattered.

Indeed, had the court’s liberals played along with this nonsense, the same shameless commentariat would’ve greeted a 6-3 ruling as proof that this is a “MAGA court” that must be fixed by court-packing that would also endanger our constitutional democracy.

The three did have some quibbles, but as Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted, “For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home.”

It’s also a message for all who don’t want Trump returned to office: Stop reaching for legal gimmicks, and focus on beating him at the polls. You keep claiming to believe in democracy — start acting that way.