THIS IS WHERE DEMS ARE TAKING JANUARY 6: This quote in The Hill today from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) captures it succinctly: “The point is that the constitutional purpose is clear, to keep people exactly like Donald Trump and other traitors to the union from holding public office.”

Raskin is referring to Section Three of the 14th Amendment, which was approved as a means of preventing former Confederates of any rank from holding elected office after the Civil War. The provision bans any individual who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies” of the Constitution.

There are presently only a dozen or so in Congress who agree with Raskin, according to The Hill, and a few as well in the academic world. But don’t think there won’t be more after today’s hyper-partisan January 6 “memorials.”

Since the constitutional penalty for treason is death, what the Raskins of the Democratic Party want is to return politics to the blood sport it was for centuries before 1789 in which losing meant a trip to the gallows, the chopping block or a firing squad.