Democrats continue to hope that it is curtains for Trump. He is still central.
For as long as Donald J. Trump has dominated Republican politics, many Democrats have yearned for a magical panacea to rid them of his presence.
There was the Mueller investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign and its ties to Russia, which began four months into his presidency. Then came the first impeachment. When Trump lost the 2020 election and his supporters stormed the Capitol, the second impeachment followed.
Each time, Democrats had visions of Trump meeting his political demise. Each time they were disappointed.
This year, liberal hopes have been reignited, with federal and state prosecutors filing 91 charges against Mr. Trump in four criminal cases.
Then, on Tuesday, what seemed like an out-of-nowhere act of liberation came from Denver. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Trump should be disqualified from office because he incited an insurrection on January 6, 2021, a decision that will likely end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Once again, Democrats are looking to American institutions to stop Mr. Trump, whom they see as a deadly threat to democracy. For many, it may be more comforting to think about a judicial endgame that stops Mr. Trump than to imagine the slog of next year’s likely rematch against President Biden.
And this time, with Democrats acutely aware of how easily he can bend the country’s fragile guardrails — and the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, including three Trump appointees — their optimism is tinged with trepidation.
“Like many people, I assumed that any impeachment, any indictment, any indictment would be the end of him,” said Robert B. Reich, a former secretary of labor who served for a time hosted a podcast called ‘The Resistance Report’.
Mr. Reich said he did not believe the Supreme Court would bar the former president from voting. But by the end of an interview on Wednesday, he had almost talked himself into the possibility that it could happen.
“As the If the Colorado Supreme Court affirms the Colorado Supreme Court, we will be in a different legal country and a very different political country,” Mr. Reich said. “That could have consequences for every state.”
Throughout Trump’s time in office, Republican voters and many of the party’s elected officials have shielded him from punishment.
The only time his future in politics seemed to be in serious doubt, the Senate fell ten votes short of convicting him of incitement of insurrection, with most Republicans in the House finding reasons to support him and banning him not disqualify from holding future federal office.
“There has been a sense of many moments of potential responsibility for Donald Trump,” said Noah Bookbinder, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the watchdog group that brought the Colorado case. “What we’ve seen time and again is that decision makers pass on opportunities for meaningful accountability because they assumed someone else would do it.”
When that moment of accountability passed in early 2021, it left open the prospect of another Trump presidential campaign, which has now become the biggest threat to Biden’s reelection.
With this in mind, some Resistance-era Democrats are assessing the Colorado decision and whether it could actually prompt the Supreme Court to block Mr. Trump from the ballots nationwide.
“I think a lot of us learned with Mueller that it’s much easier to have no expectations and be pleasantly surprised when things go your way,” said Adam Parkhomenko, a Democratic strategist who founded the Ready for Hillary super PAC before he became famous. figure in social media opposition to Mr. Trump. “There are so many balls in the air right now. It kind of makes you wonder what will be the first thing to fall that could actually be the end game for him.”
Even Mr. Biden, who has refrained from commenting on Mr. Trump’s criminal charges, could not resist highlighting the prospect that his rival could be barred from the vote.
Speaking to reporters after disembarking Air Force One in Milwaukee on Wednesday, Mr. Biden initially said he would not comment on the Colorado ruling. The White House had said nothing, and a spokesman for its 2024 operation said Tuesday night that the campaign would not either.
Then Mr. Biden opened his doors.
“It speaks for itself. You’ve seen it all, he said. ‘He certainly supported an uprising. No question about it. No. Zero.”
Other Democrats shared his views and went even further.
Jon Cooper, a former Long Island county legislator regularly predicted on social media that one scandal or another would force Mr. Trump’s resignation expressed confidence that the Colorado case would finally stop Mr. Trump.
Mr. Cooper, who still posts regularly to his 1.3 million followers on can kick it.
“Count me among those who think there is a good chance that the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold the Colorado Supreme Court ruling,” Mr. Cooper said Wednesday. “I am an optimist.”