EDITORIAL: Defenders of ‘democracy’ want Trump off the ballot

First, let’s consider what Tuesday’s Colorado high court ruling on Donald Trump’s ballot eligibility doesn’t do.

It doesn’t, at this point, upend his election chances. Mr. Trump lost Colorado in both 2016 and 2020. If he is again the GOP nominee in 2024, he’s a long shot to claim the state’s electoral votes, whether he’s on the ballot or not.

It also doesn’t acknowledge that efforts by left-wing activists to keep Mr. Trump off the ballot in a handful of other states have failed in the courts. The Colorado decision is the outlier, and the U.S. Supreme Court must now decide the issue.

That said, it’s astounding that Democrats who chant about Mr. Trump being a danger to “democracy” would go to such anti-democratic lengths to keep American voters from making their own choices. What does that say about their actual devotion to democracy — or their confidence in President Joe Biden, for that matter?

Reasonable people can disagree on the nuances of the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause. But the four justices of the Colorado Supreme Court who concluded that Mr. Trump is ineligible to run for the presidency because he ”engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the United States give woefully short shrift to constitutional protections such as due process.

Mr. Trump has not been found guilty in a court of law of engaging in an insurrection — nor has he been charged with such. While the 14th Amendment doesn’t explicitly require a conviction to trigger its prohibition, the Fifth Amendment holds that Americans cannot be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” This protection against government overreach is a consistent theme of our nation’s founding document.

As Justice Carlos Samour noted in dissent, the majority justices ignore that the proceedings in this case “lacked basic discovery, the ability to subpoena documents and compel witnesses, workable time frames to adequately investigate and develop defenses, and the opportunity for a fair trial — to adjudicate a federal constitutional claim.”

He went on: “Our government cannot deprive someone of the right to hold public office without due process of law. Even if we are convinced that a candidate committed horrible acts in the past — dare I say, engaged in insurrection — there must be procedural due process before we can declare that individual disqualified from holding public office.”

Many partisan Democrats are so blinded by their hatred for Mr. Trump that they play into his hands. The Colorado ruling will only further spur his devoted base to rally around Mr. Trump as the victim of political persecution. Are they right in this case? What are they to think when self-proclaimed defenders of “democracy” so desperately seek to prevent them from supporting the candidate of their choice?