Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance is a fierce critic of former President Donald Trump, but her popular Substack — while consistently aligned against the depradations of various MAGA maneuvers — usually adheres to the legal aspects of the cases she considers, as that is her speciality.
Vance’s lastest post, however, eschews the customary legal analysis of Trump’s latest move — a petition to the Supreme Court contesting his being declared ineligible for the primary ballot in Colorado — and expresses some of her hopes about which particular standards the U.S. should meet to fulfill the promise of its origins. To torpedo accusations of sheer partisanship here, Vance chooses a roadmap for “successful democratic societies” presented by two-term Republican President George W. Bush.
This includes Bush’s assertion that: “Successful societies protect freedom with the consistent and impartial rule of law, instead of selectively applying the law to punish political opponents.”
A few thoughts https://t.co/2Dcnxk3dMp pic.twitter.com/rr7o5DNoKs
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) January 4, 2024
Vance promises that a more detailed analysis of Trump’s petition is forthcoming, but initially she offers a sardonic view of the premise of Trump’s argument, her version of “isn’t it rich?”
Vance asserts that Trump’s premise is upside-down from its start, chock full of House-of-Mirrors-level denial and chicanery. Trump’s opening salvo is essentially that voters must be empowered to choose their leadership, which Vance implies is the very thing he rejected after losing in 2020.
Vance writes that she can’t dig into the analysis without first…
“…pointing out the hubris in the opening lines of Trump’s request that the Supreme Court hear his appeal. He writes, ‘It is a ‘fundamental principle of our representative democracy embodied in the Constitution, that the people should choose whom they please to govern them.’ Donald Trump, arguing the voters should be able to choose. Irony is dead.“
In a weird way, this is logical. Trump can't deny what he did, so he embraces it & runs on it, confident he can sell the snake oil as he always has. Future historians will look back & shake their heads in amazement that he got away with it for so long. Hopefully, it stops in 2024 https://t.co/hghmQt91mI
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) January 4, 2024
