Democrats were hoping that the effort to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the ballot using Section 3 of the 14^th Amendment would start with a bang. Instead, it began with an insipid whisper, thanks to a federal judge in Florida.

A Florida attorney recently filed a lawsuit intended to make sure that the former president could not appear on the state’s ballot in the upcoming 2024 presidential election. It is part of a larger initiative to challenge Trump’s candidacy in all 50 states, arguing that he is ineligible to hold office again because he supposedly incited the J6 riot. If the result of this first attempt is any indication, Democrats might just have to rely on their politically motivated indictments to keep Trump out of the White House.

A federal court judge in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit challenging Donald Trump's 2024 presidential candidacy under the 14th Amendment.

The lawsuit, filed a week ago, questioned Trump's ability to appear on the Florida presidential primary ballot next year, owing to his alleged role in the Jan. 6 violence at the U.S. Capitol.

In her swift dismissal of the case, Judge Robin Rosenberg, who was appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama, did not determine the 14th Amendment's applicability in Trump's case. Instead, Rosenberg ruled that the plaintiffs, Boynton Beach attorney Lawrence Caplan and two others, lacked "standing" to bring the challenge.

"Plaintiffs lack standing to challenge Defendant’s qualifications for seeking the Presidency," Rosenberg wrote, adding that "the injuries alleged" from the insurrection on Capitol Hill more than two years ago "are not cognizable and not particular to them."

Rosenberg also added that "an individual citizen does not have standing to challenge whether another individual is qualified to hold public office." She noted two prior court rulings against plaintiffs trying to keep candidates off the ballot because they participated in the Jan. 6 violence in Washington, D.C.

To put it simply, Judge Rosenberg dismissed the case because the plaintiffs “lacked standing,” meaning they were unable to show how they were personally harmed by the riot at the U.S. Capitol that Trump is being falsely accused of inciting.

The Democrats’ plot centers on Section 3 of the 14^th Amendment, which mandates that anyone who participates in a rebellion against the United States is prohibited from ever holding public office. It was originally designed for Confederates after the end of the Civil War.

Of course, it is highly possible that another attempt, using a plaintiff who could potentially argue that they were harmed by the riot, could pass the standing test. Still, the chances of successfully using the 14^th Amendment to stop Trump from appearing on the ballot are about as good as winning a tennis match against a brick wall.

Despite what the talking heads in the elite media have been screaming ever since Jan. 6, there is no evidence that Trump incited the riot or helped to plan the violence that occurred that day. One of the Justice Department’s indictments against the former president is related to his challenging the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, and even this agency has not attempted to prosecute him for playing a role in the riot.

The notion that anything Trump did rises to the level of the Confederacy, which launched a full-scale shooting war to secede from the Union, is laughable. Regardless of the many opinions on the riot, pretending that it was as significant as the Civil War is about as silly as a soup sandwich.

But, as I’ve argued plenty of times, this has nothing to do with protecting the Constitution or “democracy.’ This is a desperate political ploy intended to influence the outcome of the 2024 election – nothing more, nothing less. The left knows this is a long shot. These people are throwing every single thing they can against the former president, hoping that something will stick. If this first case is any indication, they are going to have to do better than this stupid idea.