He. Tried. To. Kill. You.
By that logic, we should then remove all barriers to run. If a convicted criminal can run, thereās no reason a 28 year old with no criminal background canāt.
Well, basically, this is the gist of āa republic, if you can keep itā. At the end of the day, my boy Montesquieuās words hang over all government like a spectre. Governments rule only by the consent of the governed. If everyone woke up tomorrow and decided we wanted Leninās mummified goatee to be president, constitution be damned, Biden be damned, itād be the president.
oh god, Elon isnāt running for president, is he?? (edit: genuine question asked out of concern that Elon may be running)
(Getting this out of the way first: Iām not a Trump supporter.)
Convicted felons can and have run for President in the past. Some campaigns have even been run from prison. Disqualifying somebody from running for office because of a conviction is extremely easy to weaponize. Itās the next step in removing somebodyās right to vote because of a conviction (a thing we do/have done and shouldnāt).
I agree with you on the age thing, though. If you can vote, you should be able to hold office.
I think the charges are pertinent. Anything directly related to undermining the very democracy you seek to lead, should be disqualifying. Likewise anyone convicted of some voter fraud crimes should have their right to vote revoked. Now I donāt mean all crimes in this areas. But there are definitely some that should stick around
This is the correct answer, in my opinion. Someone that went through a tough patch earlier in life and was convicted of stealing a car or something? Largely irrelevant to their ability to govern, if previous crimes were compensated for (i.e. they served their sentence). Actively inciting a coup to forcefully stay in office? Yeah, thatās a deal breaker.
Regardless, if Trump gets convicted of any of these crimes, that mother fucker will be serving prison time. How can he possibly be president if heās in jail? At least, for this 2024 cycle. Honestly, I donāt see him lasting another 10 years anyway, so I feel this whole debate will ultimately serve fruitless beyond the 2024 presidency.
Anything directly related to undermining the very democracy you seek to lead, should be disqualifying.
Some of the things heās been charged with are, but there are SO MANY CHARGES and only some of them would disqualify him from holding office, if convicted. And thereās no solid grounds to deny him anything other than an opportunity to flee the courts until heās actually convicted of something.
The problem is that government isnāt a computer. Plenty of corrupt governments convict political opponents of stuff like that all the time to bar them from running.
I agree with the other user, there should be as few barriers to who can run as possible, because the more restrictions there are, the more levers bad actors can pull while having some air of legitimacy.
We have a mechanism for this already: impeachment.
