Can Trump still run for president now that he's a convicted felon?

Actually the thought is if the government can just imprison you to stop your candidacy, they have too much power.

Thus they can continue to run.

Remember, there is a mechanism that prevents criminals from winning elections and holding offices, it's the one that's the best one in a democracy. The voters.

It's not good to give governments the power to decide who does and doesn't deserve to hold authority, it is good to let voters decide if someone's crimes are relevant to the election.

Sadly, it seems many Americans do not agree with me that trump is not suitable for office. Hopefully enough do that they decide not to vote for him

The concern of the founding fathers was that one state would have political reasons to rush a trial and get a legitimate candidate convicted of a crime in their court. If the conviction was legitimate, it was supposed to be handled by the Electors of the Electoral College.

Our lack of laws around the POTUS are a glaring. It's insane that a judge can preside over a case where the defendant is a former president who appointed them. Like Judge Cannon and 3 members of the SCOTUS.

Don't forget, it's not like he has a right to the presidency. The president is voted in. So technically speaking the people decide if the felonies make a difference or not

Also, you can't vote in many regressive, discriminatory states but they'd like up in their Klan hoods to vote this felon into office as there is no restriction on becoming president. Rules for thee

Cant vote either

Agreed. There are situations where it totally makes sense to have a felon run for president. This isn’t one of them

He's a Florida resident now, but I believe they also take away the right to vote for felons until their sentence is complete.

Ha, fair point.

That's one less vote for him, at least

A felon also loses their 2nd amendment rights.

He can't pardon himself for this one, it's a State level crime, not a Federal one.

Absolutely, and it's infuriating. The only thing that can stand between criminals and sociopaths is the vote, and a too much of the vote is controlled by morons.

Like republicans do consistently.

Yeah but honestly without implementing 'one true philosophy' I can't see any ground to stand on where they shouldn't be allowed to.

What if god comes down tomorrow and says 'the fuck you guys are keeping babies instead of killing them?!?'

To us we really got no frame of reference of an absolute 'good faith' or bad, so enforcing it just seems like encouraging abuse of the system.

I don't know what you're referencing, sorry if im a bit dense haha

Something something birth certificate?

Debs ran from prison (for the high crime of telling people that WWI was none of our business and people shouldn't enlist to get turned toa pink mist in Belgium) in 1920

As for voting as a felon, that varies state to state. I don't think there's anyplace that allows people to vote from prison, but quite a few states let convicted felons vote once they've completed their sentence and any parole that follows it (and in some states, pay additional fines, which sounds a bit like a poll tax to me, but I'm not one of our nine kritarchs, so what do I know about that sort of thing?)

As for people running for office when they couldn't vote, Elizabeth Cady Stanton ran for office well before she could have voted, and the first woman elected to Congress (Jeanette Rankin) was elected in 1916, several years before women's suffrage was added to the constitution, though her state, Montana, had allowed women to vote already.

Sadly, Florida, where Trump lives, defers to the State of conviction, and in NY, as long as you aren't currently in prison, you can vote.

We do amend the Constitution from time to time, but it takes a 2/3 vote in both houses of Congress, plus ratification by 3/4 of states. so it's quite a high bar.

Just because an idea is old, doesn't mean its a bad idea. And we do have mechanisms for modifying the constitution. We just don't do it often because it requires a lot of agreement.

Yeah it's because Americans are fucking terrible at governing.

The vast, vast majority of Americans do not care about their elected officials. Most do not even know who they are, and just vote based on party affiliation or don't vote at all. Our government structure also fundamentally doesn't work, and we would be far better served adopting a parliamentary system like the rest of the developed world, but nobody cares enough to do anything. Our courts are corrupt thanks to Donald Trump, gerrymandering means our elections are hardly fair, the list goes on.

America has an apathetic government that accomplishes very little and is easily captured by hostile forces because it is exactly the level of government Americans are willing to put in the effort for.

We do too trust me

We don't have parliamentary supremacy. What we have is what we have. A rough equivalent is that (assuming you're a UK citizen) the Lords could still veto bills and the Commons couldn't force the issue.

This is incorrect.

Cohen plead guilty to tax evasion and campaign finance violations

Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records

Not only is the substance of the charge different, Cohen's crimes were federal where Trump's conviction is state.

the charges that trump is guilty of, the sentencing very, very rarely includes prison time. (because we live in a fucked up country where you can get away with anything as long as you're a business.)

So far that hasn’t really been tested in court, and when it has (Trump v. Anderson) it’s not been upheld in that way.

Look I’m not saying I like it. I’m saying it’s not really that straightforward.

Those are not the minimum qualifications. They should be read as “anyone who meets them is eligible” rather than “no one who fails to meet them is eligible.” The Rehnquist court found that states could not add a felony exclusion for Congressional candidates in the 1990s and that is broadly considered to extend to the Presidency as well. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1994/93-1456

If the constitution doesn’t say it, it’s not typically intended to be assumed true. The constitution doesn’t say that felons can’t be president - so we can’t assume that the states or congress could pass laws forbidding them from being president. It specifically says you can’t be president if you’re 34 or were not born a US citizen. If the writers wanted to exclude felons, they would have said so.