Democrats seem to be afraid to take on former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. 

He's beating Joe Biden handily in the polls right now and Biden's approval is in the basement. 

Maybe that explains why the 14th Amendment effort against Trump has kicked into high gear at this point. They're running out of options as to how they can deal with Trump. Both the Colorado Supreme Court and the Maine Secretary of State have rendered decisions to boot Trump from the primary ballot. But they stayed or suspended the removal pending appeal/judicial review of their actions. So Trump remains on the ballot. 

Meanwhile, several federal courts have booted the challenge to Trump, including the latest decision from Virginia and Judge Leonie Brinkema who ruled that the challengers lacked standing. California also rejected the effort this past week. 

READ MORE:

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Because of the decisions in Colorado and Maine, there are likely to be more challenges — at least until SCOTUS weighs in to finally settle the question. 

But Democratic operative David Axelrod is putting out a warning to Democrats and anyone trying to employ this challenge to Trump. He warned that it's a bad move during a panel discussion on CNN. 

Former Obama adviser David Axelrod on efforts to remove Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot: “I do think it would rip the country apart if he were actually prevented from running”

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— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) December 31, 2023

Axelrod thought this effort just helped to support Trump — that he was only being strengthened by all this. 

Axelrod believed these efforts have backfired, “We’ve run this experiment, he’s only gained since he started getting indicted.”

“What you thought might be kryptonite for him has turned out to be battery packs, and this is a big one for him,” Axelrod said.

Axelrod also was of the opinion that the Supreme Court would act fairly quickly and leave Trump on the ballot. 

He made it very clear that he had "very, very strong reservations about all of this.” 

“I do think it would rip the country apart if he were actually prevented from running because tens of millions of people want to vote for him. I think if you’re going to beat Donald Trump, you’re going to probably have to do it at the polls."

The looks on the faces of Brianna Keilar and Adam Kinzinger were just priceless, What sourpusses, particularly Keilar. I don't think they liked Axelrod's response at all. But they tend not to like reality. 

However, Axelrod is right. At least he's willing to admit the truth, even if his fellow Democrats won't. You can't prevent millions of people from voting for the candidate of their choice on such a flimsy argument without expecting that that's going to come back to hurt you badly at the ballot box. It already makes Democrats look desperate and flailing, in addition to violating the principles of democracy they claim to care about. Talk about election interference — that's what this is, right in our faces.