Why the Colorado decision disqualifying Trump was absolutely right

The Colorado Supreme Court just decided that the US Constitution still matters.

After all, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is right there in the document — designed to prohibit people who’ve taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and then participated in an insurrection against the United States from holding elected or appointed office. On Tuesday night, the court found that former President Donald Trump should be removed from the state’s ballot because he did just that.

Since the debris was cleaned up after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, there has been a debate about whether this post-Civil War amendment could bar Trump and other instigators from holding future office. Good people can disagree, but the answer has always seemed a self-evident yes to me.