“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
To be fair, “support” isn’t the exact word used, but “preserve, protect, and defend” is pretty unequivocal
The intention is that it’s a step beyond the oath of support, having just dug around in law articles and history on it.
And reading the article, it sounds like the only one making a semantical argument, is Trump and his lawyers.
Exactly. It’s a massive stretch to think there’s a false equivalency between “support” and “preserve, protect, and defend”.
But of course…this is Trump here. He’s willing to bend himself into a pretzel if it means he can avoid responsibility for anything bad.
“The best of his ability” is the loophole he should have exploited.
It’s a lot more believable.
Given the oath an elected official needs to swear, you’d think this would invalidate him for even trying to get elected.
But we know the normal rules don’t seem to matter any more.
Traitor
If only he had murdered a bunch of small children instead then Republicans might have cared about the Constitution part.
I think you mean fetuses. Republicans don’t care about children after they’re outside of a uterus.
There is a record of the Senate debate on this amendment.
One questioned ‘Why doesn’t this include the president?’.
Another senator replied ‘It does under the section of anyone who holds an office’.
The response was ‘Ok, I was unclear on that’. And the debate carried on.
So the writers obviously intended this to include the office of the president.
If only things like this mattered in this reality.
Actually, it really might in this case.
A number of the justices currently sitting on the supreme court are (or claim to be) originalists.
Meaning, the original intent of the writers is the correct interpretation. Evidence showing what that original intent was can be very useful with judges like that.
Does that “strict originalist” view extend to the “well regulated militia” part of the 2nd ammendment?
I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
The argument is that the word “support” isn’t explicitly there. Therefore, the President is not an officer of the government, and therefore Trump isn’t barred from being President under the 14th Amendment.
This argument is dumb, of course. Scalia once made a similar one, noting that punishments must be cruel and unusual to be constitutionally banned. Cruel or unusual on their own is fine.
Wait, that’s their actual argument? For real?
… 😂
Why stop at that word? Why not complain that every synonym for every word isn’t included? Just turn the whole thing into a thesaurus?
Every time I think they’ve hit maximum daft, they climb back in the hole and dig up some more. Amazing.
I’m sorry, fucking what now?
That’s the nation’s constitutionalists’ preferred candidate, everyone, nothing wrong here.
And 50% of Americans approve! Bravo!
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