MAYBE WE SHOULD HAVE TRIED BALLOT REMOVAL THREE YEARS AGO

I don't have much to say about the New York Times article asking whether efforts to remove Donald Trump from presidential ballots will help him or hurt him. I notice that the article finds two Democratic voters who have qualms.

But on a recent sunny Friday afternoon in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, Deena Drewis, 37, a copy writer, and Aaron Baggaley, 43, a contractor, both of whom have consistently voted for Democrats, expressed a queasy ambivalence over such an extraordinary step.

“I’m really just conflicted,” Mr. Baggaley said. “It’s hard to imagine he didn’t fully engage in insurrection. Everything points to it. But the other half of the country is in a position where they feel like it should be up to the electorate.”

I don't know where these people were found -- every Democrat I know (except for me) thinks ballot removal is an awesome idea.

I won't rehash my previous post on this, but one thought I've had recently is: Why is this being done now? I think Republican and Republican-curious voters are likely to believe that both the criminal cases against Trump and the ballot removal movement are designed to deny them democratic choice -- yet I understand why it took a long time to mount the criminal cases. But why couldn't the ballot removal movement have started in January 2021?

Imagine if, when the insurrection was fresh in people's minds, anti-Trumpers had gone to court to argue that Trump would undoubtedly try to run for president again, but shouldn't be allowed to because of the Fourteenth Amendment. Most ordinary voters weren't thinking about 2024 then. We could have hashed the question out before the 2024 campaign got under way, and Republicans could have had a real open primary season.

I think the Trump base still would have felt that this was an anti-democratic movement -- but maybe other voters, including Republicans who weren't Trump superfans, might have accepted the process a bit more readily.

And if not in early 2021, then why not do it in the summer of 2022, after the first hearings of the House January 6 committee?

I understand why some people look at the ballot removal movement and conclude that it's an effort to get the guy who's leading in both the primary and general election polls off the ballot because he's leading in the primary and general election polls. I know that's not why it's happening now and you know that's not why it's happening now, but I get why other people think that's why it's happening now.

The reason there weren't ballot challenges in 2021 or 2022 is that right-thinking people found it hard to believe that this awful man could possibly run again and be a successful candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, as well as a serious threat to Biden's reelection. Americans couldn't possibly vote for this low-class ruffian, could they? Not after this! It was inconceivable!

That was a failure of imagination. And now trying to enforce the Constitution seems, to some voters, like trying to pull a fast one.