5 March—The ants are back in the kitchen early this year. And it’s Stupid Tuesday, known to some as Super Tuesday, when 16 states (and American Samoa for Democrats) hold party presidential primaries and caucuses. Some other nominations are also in play. Eleven of the states hold open Republican primaries in which voters need not be registered Republicans. Talk about Stupid Tuesday.

Connecticut’s Less Stupid Tuesday—for the moment, anyway, since only people registered with a party may vote in its primary—this year is 2 April. Not that it’s going to make a difference in party presidential nominations or the general election.

So quite as it should have done, yesterday the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that states don’t have the authority to keep irredeemable scumbag Donald Trump off primary ballots. Trump magnanimously called it a “big win for America.” Forget about the rest of the ruling for now, in which the five male conservative justices may have gone overboard. Consider instead the actual disqualification clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

It applies to Trump (in the words of the relevant clause) only because he had “previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States.”

On the other hand, anyone who hasn’t taken such an oath—and that’s most people—even if they’ve “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”—may in fact “hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State.”

Consider, too, even if an individual who had previously taken an oath as a member of the military or other entity not specified in XIV 3 should have done the dirty, he, she, it, or they would nevertheless be eligible to serve in the capacities specified. That would appear to be a glaring oversight, especially given the post-Civil War circumstance of the Fourteenth Amendment and, for instance, sworn U.S. Army officers who had participated in the Confederate insurrection. But was it?

Then there are other pilpuls, like what if an individual in a specified office didn’t for whatever reason or reasons actually swear to support the Constitution of the United States or claims as much? If the oath is mandatory for the office, may it then be inferred?

In all events, “Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.” And Congress always does whatever it damn well pleases anyway . . .