I'll start with a more official-sounding condemnation from Sen. Thom Tillis before we get to the less kind responses.
Maine’s Democrat Secretary of State just removed Trump from the ballot. This is an egregious abuse of power and why I will be introducing the Constitutional Election Integrity Act as soon as Congress returns to session to stop these partisan officials and ensure any… https://t.co/evVu6bSv0H— Senator Thom Tillis (@SenThomTillis) December 29, 2023
The full post reads:
Maine’s Democrat Secretary of State just removed Trump from the ballot. This is an egregious abuse of power and why I will be introducing the Constitutional Election Integrity Act as soon as Congress returns to session to stop these partisan officials and ensure any constitutional challenge is only decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tillis is correct in saying it's an egregious abuse of power. It's so broad and so arbitrary on the legal merits that if allowed to stand, Republican officials would have more than enough cause to remove Joe Biden from the ballot in their states. Again, that's a clue on what's really going on here.
Naturally, Shenna Bellows, the secretary of state in question, had previously stumped for "voting rights" and demanded that others be allowed to vote for who they want.
What a hashtag. https://t.co/s6s68brlnb— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 29, 2023
This is Shenna Bellows, the Maine Secretary of State who just removed Trump from the ballot.
She said the right of every American to vote freely and fairly is the premise of our democracy.
By her own standards, she is the real threat to our democracy!
pic.twitter.com/V66SWbVxUC— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 29, 2023
You see, voting is a "fundamental right," according to Bellows, unless we are talking about the right to vote for a presidential candidate she holds an inherent hatred of. In that case, it's fine to spit on the democratic process and strip that person from the ballot based on nothing more than feelings and twisted legal reasoning.
Once again, an AWFL has decided to play authoritarian for the "greater good." They know best, and you don't dare suggest otherwise, you fascist.
You couldn’t come up with a better stereotype.
pic.twitter.com/eybDuoPhsn— Ahmed Al Asliken 🕋☪️✈️ (@assliken) December 29, 2023
So why did I put "removed" in quotes at the beginning of this piece? I did so because it's obvious what's actually going on here. Just as with the Colorado Supreme Court ruling removing Trump from the ballot, Bellows stayed her own decision (meaning it doesn't go into effect), giving the final say to the U.S. Supreme Court.
What does that tell you? It tells you that none of these cheap stunts are meant to succeed technically. It's essentially a foregone conclusion that the U.S. Supreme Court will not only keep the stays in place, but they will ultimately rule against the states trying to use the 14th Amendment without any due process to bar Trump from the ballot.
In the end, Bellows doesn't believe she'll win. She just wants her name in lights while setting up the U.S. Supreme Court to play the bad guy for half the country. It's a tactic the Biden administration has used over and over, enacting illegal measures with an eye on passing the buck to the judiciary so they can cry foul when they lose.
The same thing will happen here. The nation's high court will eventually make a common sense ruling to reinstate Trump on these ballots, and then the far left will call them tyrants who want to destroy democracy. What does that accomplish? It helps juice Democrat turnout. It's all so predictable, and it's a blatant abuse of the system to influence an election.