The fallout is underway from Donald Trump’s removal from the Colorado 2024 ballot
When the Colorado Supreme Court ruled this week that Donald Trump is disqualified from the 2024 presidential ballot in the state because he led an insurrection against the United States, I said not to expect much in terms of electoral impact. Trump was never going to win Colorado to begin with. And even if the U.S. Supreme Court does let this ruling stand, the other states that might plausibly remove Trump are also states that he wouldn’t have won anyway. So it’s unlikely to change the election math at all.
But we are now seeing fallout of a different kind. Even if you agree with me that Trump’s removal from the Colorado ballot doesn’t really hurt him, it would be laughable to suggest that it somehow helps him. So of course we’re now seeing major media outlets indeed suggest that this somehow helps him.
For instance CNN has now seized the opportunity to suggest that the U.S. Supreme Court will now end up deciding the 2024 election. Well okay then. What’s remarkable is how the media just keeps framing things in terms of Trump having a 100% chance of winning in 2024 unless this or that magic wand takes him down. Nevermind that in a head to head election, Biden would obviously be more likely to win, given that he beat Trump by seven million votes last time they went head to head.
At least the Washington Post is merely running an op-ed ludicrously suggesting that the U.S. Supreme Court should reinstate Trump to the Colorado ballot. WaPo never misses an opportunity to dish out an absurd contrarian hot take these days. But at least it’s not going as far as CNN, which is using deviously worded headlines to make people think that the Supreme Court is likely to decide 2024 in the same way that it decided 2000.
In any case the biggest fallout we’re seeing so far from the Colorado ballot decision is in the media. The media overhyped the importance of the “Trump is disqualified” movement to begin with, falsely suggesting that it could lead to Trump being bounced from the 2024 election entirely, and that we were all doomed unless it worked. And yet now that the “Trump is disqualified” movement has finally achieved a victory, the media seems to be suggesting that it means we’re more doomed than ever. Go figure.
