Comment on Can Trump still run for president now that he's a convicted felon?
sanguinepar@lemmy.world 5 months ago
He can, because there’s no law against it. Probably nobody thought there’d ever need to be!
My man Eugen Debbs ran from prison in the early 1900s. He was thrown in prison for speaking out again the war (the first amendment wasn’t much protection back in the day).
It is good that he could run, since he was a political prisoner. He advocated for the common man against the corrupt institutions.
Agreed. There are situations where it totally makes sense to have a felon run for president. This isn’t one of them
But the kicker is that he isn’t allowed to vote right? New York restore voting rights after you have completed your sentence if I remember correctly.
He’s a Florida resident now, but I believe they also take away the right to vote for felons until their sentence is complete.
Florida… HAHAHAHA, this is effin’ to good to be true… in Florida you risk lose your voting rights FOREVER!!!
Florida lets felons vote again.
Keep in mind that the founding fathers were guilty of what would have been considered a lot of grave crimes by England, which was formerly the jurisdiction that applied to them.
So they probably wouldn’t have had a huge appetite for blocking political rights of criminals given their recent standing.
Ha, fair point.
I find it while that a felon can’t vote, but they could run for office.
A felon also loses their 2nd amendment rights.
That’s one less vote for him, at least
It’s all down to state vs federal powers. States have the power to decide how voting happens in their state, within limits set by the Constitution. They can ban felons, or not.
If a convicted felon loses their right to vote, they should not be allowed to run for president.
They would make protesting Israel a felony so fucking fast
And if he wins again, he’s going to Pardon everybody who buys one from him. Including himself. Because there’s no law against it, and nobody thought that there ever needed to be for that either.
He can’t pardon himself for this one, it’s a State level crime, not a Federal one.
He can appoint two new members to the Supreme Court and then have them rule that Trump, as President, is immune to being prosecuted or held responsible for any state or federal crime but like Bush v. Gore it isn’t a precedent and doesn’t apply to any other President.
dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
As an outsider that’s pretty wild. So you can’t buy a firearm but you can be president and control them all. Like what?
Pronell@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Actually the thought is if the government can just imprison you to stop your candidacy, they have too much power.
Thus they can continue to run.
dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
I would say just don’t break any laws then, but laws can change and people are terrible.
Pronell@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Sure, but a corrupt government can fabricate evidence to keep their enemies silenced.
Look at Russia and their treatment of Alexei Navalny.
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 5 months ago
A very naïve idea :-(
essell@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Remember, there is a mechanism that prevents criminals from winning elections and holding offices, it’s the one that’s the best one in a democracy. The voters.
It’s not good to give governments the power to decide who does and doesn’t deserve to hold authority, it is good to let voters decide if someone’s crimes are relevant to the election.
Sadly, it seems many Americans do not agree with me that trump is not suitable for office. Hopefully enough do that they decide not to vote for him
SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
We’ve got these things called “social media” that are built expressly for the purpose of influencing people to buy more stuff (literally in the name: influencers). And if it can get people to part with their money, you can be sure the same tools can be used to get people to vote against their own interests.
We thought the internet was a tool to spread democracy. We were wrong. The Internet is a tool used to undermine democracy, so long as people using the Internet are not strongly inoculated against organized interests, foreign, and domestic.
dudinax@programming.dev 5 months ago
Who thought the intent was to spread Democracy?
The Internet’s been both very good and very bad for Democracy. Without the internet, most people would be at the mercy of CNN or Fox to explain all the horrible things Donny Two Scoops has done.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 5 months ago
The concern of the founding fathers was that one state would have political reasons to rush a trial and get a legitimate candidate convicted of a crime in their court. If the conviction was legitimate, it was supposed to be handled by the Electors of the Electoral College.
Nougat@fedia.io 5 months ago
If the conviction is legitimate, the Electoral College has ways to shut it down.
Boozilla@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Our lack of laws around the POTUS are a glaring. It’s insane that a judge can preside over a case where the defendant is a former president who appointed them. Like Judge Cannon and 3 members of the SCOTUS.
Alimentar@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Actually to play devil’s advocate, it’s not like he has a right to the presidency. The president is voted in. So technically speaking the people decide if the felonies make a difference or not
pdxfed@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Also, you can’t vote in many regressive, discriminatory states but they’d like up in their Klan hoods to vote this felon into office as there is no restriction on becoming president. Rules for thee
sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
Cant vote either