AA Edit | Alarm bells for Donald Trump

The former US President and 2024 hopeful, Donald Trump, is on a sticky wicket, at least for the moment. Colorado’s Supreme Court, in a four-judge majority decision with three others dissenting, has ruled that his name cannot be on the state’s Republican primary election ballot paper on the grounds that he engaged in an insurrection aimed at the Capitol Hill, on January 6, 2021.

The provision from Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which bars elected officials from holding office if they engage in an insurrection, has been thrown at the candidate whom the Republicans are certain to choose to run again for the top office, with the judges clearly saying the provision applied to the office of President, too.  

The ruling has huge ramifications even though it is just a first strike against the irrepressible former President. He would be expecting to overturn the ruling in the top court, which is bound to wade into the issue and it has time till January 4, 2024. Already busy with defending himself in lawsuits of every imaginable kind, Mr Trump will be taking the appeal against his disqualification to the top court.

Mr Trump has lately been airing alarming warnings about how he may be pushing towards greater authoritarianism. In fact, people see him as a potential dictator of the USA if he becomes the President again in an anticipated run against incumbent President Joe Biden. That would be the worst fate for a country that has been a beacon of constitutional democracy empowering people with “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.

Such an inspirational aim that laid the very basis of government has been under threat from the real estate mogul turned maverick politician who has upended every rule of duty and responsibility while keeping the mantle of the world’s most powerful man that comes with the office of the US President, which he held for a term from 2017.

The last has not been heard of Mr Trump in a battle that will last till election day. But that a bench of judges can agree with the notion of stopping Mr Trump is proof of what a divisive leader he has proved to be. Of course, the Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative bias, with three judges being Mr Trump appointees, and it may view Mr Trump’s actions and rights quite differently, and sympathetically, too.