The US supreme court could still swing the election for Trump

On Monday, the US supreme court unanimously overturned the Colorado supreme court’s decision to remove Trump from the Republican primary ballot. The highest court in the land predictably concluded that the “insurrection clause” of the 14^th amendment did not authorize state enforcement “with respect to federal offices, especially the presidency”.

A contrary ruling would have been a recipe for chaos, and, worse still, would have done nothing to safeguard the nation from a potential Trump victory in November. I say this because presumably the only states that might have barred Trump from their ballot would have been those of the solidly blue variety – states Trump was going to lose anyway. And given that Republicans, particularly of the Maga-stripe, are masters of the politics of retaliation and escalation, we would have witnessed red states clamoring to remove Biden from their ballots. The result would have been an election precisely to Trump’s liking – one without democratic legitimacy.

But if the court acquitted itself in this case, we still have reason to fear the mischief it might play in the upcoming vote. In Monday’s ruling, the court was conspicuously silent about whether Trump actually engaged in insurrection or election interference. Those matters are still to be decided at trial – that is, if either the Fulton county court or the DC district court ever gets to try its case.

At present the Georgia prosecution is beset with problems of its own making. Whether the charges against the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis – that she allegedly profited by hiring a special prosecutor with whom she was romantically involved – are true is almost irrelevant. The fact alone that members of the prosecution are