Will More States Disqualify Him From Running?
People who have known Trump from his Studio 54 days and his Apprentice days have always said that there was an unpleasant odor that emanated from him. More recently, during his time in the White House, people who had to be in a room with him frequently have said the smell was dirty adult diapers. On Thursday, former Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) identified the smell: “It’s not good. The best way to describe it... take armpits, ketchup, a butt and makeup and put that all in a blender and bottle that as a cologne.” That sounds a little complicated when the pungent smell is actually a kind of hydrogen sulfide given off by volcanoes. Most people who have commented on Trump’s smell say “rotten eggs,” which is the pungent and noxious smell of sulphur (fire and brimstone).
People who have gotten a whiff of Trump disagree in their descriptions. Is that smell shit (from the dirty diapers) or is it sulphur, which is often associated with decay, disease, and death, a fitting symbol for the uncleanliness and suffering believed to exist in hell? Book of Genesis: “Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah— from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities— and also the vegetation in the land.”
In The Inferno, Dante was not describing a visit to Trump’s Oval Office but the similarities are undeniable:
A bestial smell the deep abyss upgave
When we were down; so grievous, that I, near
By, stopped my nose and made my guide draw up.
I’ve known Shenna Bellows since she was executive director of the ACLU and Blue America endorsed her when she ran for the U.S. Senate— against Susan Collins— and then when she ran for the state Senate seat that she won. I have no doubt whatsoever that Trump’s stench did not figure into her decision to keep him off the ballot in Maine. On Friday, Nick Bogel-Burroughs reported that the campaign to have Trump “removed from the ballot over his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election has kicked into high gear, with decisions in two states, Maine and Colorado, barring him from the primary ballots. Challenges are still underway in many more states, based on an obscure clause of a constitutional amendment enacted after the Civil War that disqualifies government officials who ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion’ from holding office. Neither the 14th Amendment nor the insurrection clause is all that obscure. But you know…the NY Times.
Shenna agreed with Maine citizens who complained that Trump “had incited an insurrection and was thus barred from seeking the presidency again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution… [She wrote] that while no one in her position had ever barred a candidate from the ballot based on Section 3 of the amendment, ‘no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.’” A less worthwhile, less courageous Secretary of State, political hack Shirley Weber, left Trump on the California ballot.
During a CNN interview, former Nixon attorney John Dean said he believes Shenna’s decision to remove Trump from the ballot is “very solid” and will be tough for Trump to have overturned. “There was ample due process in this proceeding, and they just lost by a straight, honest reading of the 14th Amendment. Trump’s in trouble… I want to see those strict constructionists and originalists [on the Supreme Court] get around that language. How are they going to do it? I don’t know. It looks so applicable. I don’t know what they can do with it other than take [Trump] off the ballot.”
There are still 14 lawsuits seeking to remove Trump from the ballot: Alaska, Arizona (a decision against removal is being appealed), Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The only cases that would be consequential to the election are Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The others are reliably blue states whose electoral votes are going to Biden regardless if Trump is on the ballot of not.