Nearly 24 years ago, five right-wing members of the Supreme Court handed the presidency to George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore. Despite the conservatives’ hypocritical deference to the states on gun control, tobacco “rights,” disability rights and violence against women, the court overruled Florida’s interpretation of its election statutes to install Bush as president.

Now, the high court is poised to insinuate itself once again into a presidential election by allowing Trump-the-insurrectionist to remain on the ballot in Colorado in violation of the disqualification clause in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. But this time the six right-wingers on the court will likely be joined by at least two of their liberal colleagues.

At the February 8 oral argument in Anderson v. Trump, every member of the Supreme Court except Sonia Sotomayor signaled they will disregard the command of Section 3 and hold that individual states cannot disqualify candidates for national elections unless Congress passes a statute saying they can.

It looks like a near-unanimous majority of the high court will overturn the Colorado Supreme Court’s holding that former President Donald Trump is disqualified from appearing on the ballot.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment states:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having 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, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Several members of the court seem inclined to accept Trump’s argument that the president is not an “officer” of the U.S. — a proposition so ludicrous you don’t have to be a lawyer to see its absurdity. Some members who purport to be “originalists” appeared prepared to read into Section 3 a requirement that Congress pass legislation before the disqualification can be invoked. Most members of the court all but ignored Trump’s participation in the January 6 insurrection, the greatest threat to the survival of the republic since the Civil War.

Indeed, Section 3 was enacted after the Civil War to disqualify people from holding office who had served in government prior to the war but then supported the Confederacy.

In questioning whether the president is an officer of the United States, Neil Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson cited Section 3’s listing of several officers that didn’t include the president. But that section also includes “any office, civil or military,” and the Constitution calls the president an “officer” in several other places. Gorsuch and Jackson appeared to agree with Trump’s claim that “officers” refers only to appointed officials, not elected ones. But Sotomayor called that interpretation “a bit of a gerrymandered rule.”

Moreover, these originalists, who profess to consider the “original public meaning” at the time the 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution, disregarded explicit comments on the........

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