Michigan Rejects Attempt to Ban Trump From Primary Ballot
The Facts
The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to hear an appeal of a lower-court ruling, in effect allowing former Pres. Donald Trump to appear on the state’s Republican primary ballot in the race for the 2024 presidential nomination despite a lawsuit challenging his eligibilty.
Free Speech for People, an advocacy group, had appealed the lower-court ruling, arguing Trump, the Republican frontrunner, is forbidden from returning to the White House based on his alleged attempt to prevent the certification of Democratic challenger Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election.
The Spin
Pro-Trump narrative
The Biden administration’s attempts to paint Trump as an insurrectionist are lunacy, and in fact, he hasn’t been charged with insurrection in any of the politically motivated criminal cases against him. The Michigan court chose reason over a witch hunt, and hopefully, other states will follow suit, as this election interference by the incumbent president is wasting Trump’s resources and tearing apart the American electoral system.
Anti-Trump narrative
The court ducked its responsibility to make sure political parties are only putting candidates on a state’s primary ballot who are eligible to serve in the office — a category that excludes insurrectionists. This narrow decision, though, allows for a challenge to the general election ballot if Trump is the nominee and allows other states to take up the matter moving forward.