David Frum, author of “Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic,” has slammed attempts to use the Constitution to ban the former president from office, calling the efforts “misguided and dangerous.”
In an article penned for The Atlantic Tuesday, Frum argued those who have contended former President Donald Trump should be disqualified from office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment are advocating for a “minefield of problems” that simply won’t work.
“The project to disqualify Trump from running for president is misguided and dangerous. It won’t work. If it somehow could work, it would create problems worse even than Americans already face,” Frum stated.
“Legal process can prosecute and punish crimes. It cannot save a nation from itself,” writes @davidfrum. “That duty falls instead on each of us”: https://t.co/XgU7h811Kp
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) August 29, 2023
“The least of these problems is the legal one: whether Trump’s scheme to seize the presidency by fraud, then violence, amounts to a “rebellion” or an “insurrection” under the amendment. There will be a lot of disagreement on that point, enough to generate litigation. But let’s suppose that the excluders win in court or that the courts abdicate altogether, kicking the dispute back to the elected branches of government as a ‘political matter,'” Frum continued. (RELATED: Frum: Trump’s Handling Of Coronavirus Means ‘The Apocalypse Is Here’)
In the event that the government did succeed in excluding Trump, Frum argued, “the use of the section to debar candidates would not stop at Trump. It would become a dangerously convenient tool of partisan politics.”
To illustrate his point, Frum pointed out Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s equation of Al-Qaida with the U.S. military, wondering if perhaps she would be targeted for seemingly providing “aid and comfort” to enemies of the United States. Frum further questioned whether the two Black Democrats ousted from the Tennessee House earlier this year for violating House rules would be forever banned from holding office due to “rebellion.”
“In an ideal world, Trump’s fellow Republicans would handle this matter by repudiating his crimes and rejecting his candidacy for their presidential nomination. Failing that — and it certainly seems as if that hope is failing — opponents of Trump must dig deep and beat him at the polls one more time. There is no cheat code to win this game,” Frum stated.