It's always a surprise when David Brooks actually fights with Jonathan Capehart on the Friday night panel on the PBS NewsHour. But he denounced Maine's Democrat Secretary of State taking Donald Trump off the primary ballot, saying it was not just a "terrible decision," but an "even worse threat to democracy" than Colorado's Supreme Court ripping Trump off the ballot.
Anchor Geoff Bennett began: "Maine has joined Colorado as the second state to ban Donald Trump from its presidential primary ballot under a constitutional provision that prevents insurrectionists from holding office." He asked: "David, what's your assessment of this decision by Maine's secretary of state?"
This is where you can expect Brooks will break out a bit of small-C conservatism, preferring a little observing of norms. It's always funny when the leftists argue that Trump destroys democratic norms, but here we are again, as they try to remove Republicans from the ballot.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I thought Colorado was pretty terrible. And I think this is an even worse threat to democracy, some random Democratic politician throwing the Republican front-runner off the ballot for a crime, as you said in one of your questions, he's not even convicted of, he hasn't even been charged with.
The process should always be, voters decide, voters decide. It should be that doubly when we have an entire democratic system is under a crisis of authority and people don't trust it. They think the game is rigged. If suddenly you have random people throwing people off the ballot, they're going to think, oh, the game really is rigged.
And then if you have one Democrat throwing a candidate off the ballot in Maine, do you really think some Republicans aren't going to start throwing people off the ballot somewhere else? It's just — I just thought it was a terrible decision and one that confirms every story that Donald Trump tells, which is those liberal elites are out to get you.
And, suddenly — I don't know if she's a liberal elite, but somebody's out to silence your voice.
Shenna Bellow is a Democrat in New England, so she's definitely a liberal elite. She's elected not by the people, but by the legislature of Maine. Brooks could take in a few sentences from Wikipedia: Bellows "attended Middlebury College, graduating magna cum laude in 1997 with highest honors for her thesis on economic and environmental sustainability....Bellows served as executive director of the ACLU of Maine for eight years. In that role, she built coalitions with both Republicans and Democrats to pass privacy and civil rights laws. She was a leader of Mainers United for Marriage, working for seven years to pass same-sex marriage in Maine." And during her ACLU years, she won several awards for "her work to advance women’s health and reproductive choice" -- abortion.
Capehart was flustered, since he's a Christmas snowflake who cannot seem to take an opposing viewpoint.
BENNETT: Jonathan, what about that, the argument that this is election interference of a different source? (Laughter)
CAPEHART: My gosh, David! I don't buy it. The idea that this is a cabal of liberal elites attacking democracy, going after Donald Trump, is ridiculous, one, because these challenges are being brought by Republicans. There are Republicans who are trying to keep Donald Trump off the Republican primary ballot. That is definitely the case in Colorado.
The lefties all use this argument, that the professors pushing this 14th Amendment "solution" are Republicans -- who are the darlings of the liberal elites.
