It may not be terminal, but Trump Derangement Syndrome certainly is hard to shake.
Liberal Fox News analyst Juan Williams argues that Attorney General Merrick Garland can prevent Donald Trump from running for president in 2024 – and is demanding he does so.
Writing recently in The Hill, and citing another op-ed by left-wing former Clinton adviser Robert Reich, Williams argued, “Garland has the power to rule out another Trump run” under the 14th Amendment, which says anyone who “engaged in insurrection” against America can be barred from holding political off.
“The facts say Trump tried to stage a coup,” Williams wrote. “Prohibition on future political bids by a coup leader — someone ‘engaged in insurrection’ — fits with what is now publicly known about Trump’s efforts to remain in office after he lost in 2020.”
Williams’ so-called “facts” include statements Trump made after the election, some of which have been shown to have been taken out of context, and others that were ignored by his subordinates.
Williams, like other liberals, also took seriously Trump’s claims that he would be “reinstated” to the presidency this month.
But Williams, apparently revealing himself to be a conspiracy theorist, offers this nugget:
“All of this is strong evidence against Trump. It recently got even more chilling when court filings alleged one person in the crowd wanted more than insurrection. He wanted to secede from the union and create the ‘State of Appalachia.’ Seeking to destroy the union is a criminal act of conspiracy. To this day, the idea of seceding from the United States has traction with Trump Republicans.”
There is a legitimate debate to be had, as we’ve had almost since the beginning of the country, whether the states, which created the federal government, not the other way around, can voluntarily dissolve the union.
But if Williams believes it’s a crime to want to secede, he obviously only wants to spin that one way.
He cited a poll last month – as the Tampa Free Press reported at the time – that revealed 66 percent of GOP voters in the South would like to see the southern states become a separate nation.
What he didn’t tell readers was that the same poll found that 47 percent of Democrats favor creating a new self-governing republic loosely referred to as “Pacific” that would be comprised of California, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, and Alaska. And that 39 percent of Democrats in the Northeast – from Maryland and Delaware northward – feel the same.
Williams then weirdly suggested that it is somehow secessionist for GOP-led state legislatures to pass election-integrity laws – glossing over the fact that, in that poll he cited, the lowest proportions of Democrats who want to secede live in red states.
Williams, naturally, brings up the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, and says its “whitewashing … is an ongoing conspiracy to downplay violent disruption of the U.S. government.”
Disruption that lasted about two hours, by the way, and a far, far briefer time period that required to rebuild many major U.S. cities after the Black Lives Matter riots last year. And by the way, people are going to jail for Jan. 6, unlike those who torched and looted major urban areas last year.
“So, yes, there is a case to be made that Trump committed crimes against America,” Williams argues, maintaining that Trump cannot be above the law just because he is out of office. “Garland has the power to stop Trump from running again. It is time to use it.”
Undoubtedly, many liberals fear Trump and want to politicize the Justice Department in this way because they fear him.
Trump, or any Republican really, has a broad opening in 2024 because President Joe Biden sits atop a mountain of ruinous, radical, divisive policies, and Vice President Kamala Harris, should Biden leave before his term is up, is no better.
If that’s the case that former president should be held accountable for “crimes against America,” then those of us who believe former President Barack Obama should be held responsible for murderous drone strikes on U.S. citizens overseas without giving them due process look forward to Williams joining in that cause.
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Juan has too much time on his hands. Send him to Afghanistan to help rescue Americans….maybe he can meet up with some Taliban face to face.