What if former President Trump decides to run again. I’m not a political prognosticator, but even I can foresee a bumpy road ahead, and it hangs on the disqualification clause of the 14th Amendment that bars any person from holding office who has engaged in insurrection. Did he? That is the $64 question. Whether he did or not, the lies will be circling the globe before the truth gets its boots on. Each state will have to decide whether to bar Trump from being on the ballot or not. Stand-in candidates will muddy the waters, and nobody will be able to win the necessary 270 electoral votes to get elected. We will move right along to the 12th Amendment, and the House will pick the next president. If the House picks Trump his legitimacy will be called into question, and the Supreme Court called into play.
While deliberations are ongoing, impatience will be brewing in the streets, where rule of law will be tested day to day. I don’t know what kind of Constitutional Crisis we will have on our hands, but it will most likely be augmented by an insurrection like what we saw on January 6th, but bigger. End of prognostication.
A friend suggested we ask every willing citizen in the United States with an average IQ of 98 or higher to put their name into a lottery, and the name pulled out on ‘Lottery Day’ will become the next President of the United States. If that person declines the offer, then another name is pulled until we have ourselves a person of average intelligence to run the country for the next four years. No gerrymandering, no voter suppression, no more grotesque campaign finance system, no outlawing and punishing the providers of water to voters standing in line, no Constitutional Crisis.
My personal political ambitions were nipped in the bud when I ran for Class President in seventh grade. My credentials were less than illustrious. My grades were so bad that my father used to give me a dollar for every C that I brought home on my report card. But I could play the drums. So I brought a set of bongos to school and would drum out on the playground to draw a small crowd and drum-up my chances of becoming president. Then our principal called me into his office one day and explained to me that were I to get elected, my extracurricular activities, like doing my homework with my girlfriend behind the fence at the baseball field, would be curtailed. I never suspected until then that he knew we were making out behind the right field fence. But that was all I needed to hear. I respectfully drew down my colors and dropped out of the race.
All I know about 2024 is that a meaningful Democracy requires the transcending of party ideologies. It’s time to bury the hatchets and embrace collaboration…
About the Author McAvoy Layne
For thirty-four years now, in four thousand performances from
Piper’s Opera House to Leningrad University in Russia,
McAvoy has been preeminent in preserving the wit & wisdom of
The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope, Mark Twain.
McAvoy is a winner of the Nevada Award for Excellence in School and Library Service.
He plays the ghost of Mark Twain in the Discovery Channel’s Cronkite Award winning documentary, 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.'
Says McAvoy, “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher,
whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American.”