Is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution Real?

A recent editorial by Turley in thehill.com argues that of course the 14th amendment is not relevant or in current use.  I dont expect Republicans to agree with me on much, but I dont appreciate it when they insult my intelligence.  And this has larger implications.

I wonder if I am just being overly precious about what is standard debating / rhetorical technique. I find it offensive that a republican that has been so very adament about "original intent" and "every word is precious in the constitution" would then with a straight face say "oh, that 14th amendment, ha ha, they werent serious". When in fact they were very serious, the clause is to our amazement completely relevant to the current situation. But these are republicans which means that they have no credibility when it comes to actually defending and supporting this country (see two impeachment fails to convict, there will never be a better case for impeachment in our lifetimes). The conclusion I reached long ago is that it does not matter what arguments a Republican makes, they arent serious, they are just lying to steal the money. Well, OK, nobody's perfect, but this is a very dangerous situation and this kind of glib bullshit reinforces the belief that the Republican party is the enemy of this country and must be removed from any critical political and judicial position. There is no point in compromising with these people. They are literally the enemy just as much as, for example, Vlad Putin is.

A corollary of this is that whenever a "democrat" says "bipartisan", I think "traitor". There is no point in compromising with fascists, they are just stalling for advantage.

Constitutional Failure, What Changes Should We Make?

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Since the constitution has obviously failed and we are living in semi-dictatorship, or moving in that direction, (see note), it seems reasonable to discuss how we can change the constitution to improve it and prevent such things in the future.  But since our elected leaders and political elite have failed to step up to this challenge, I will do it for them.  For those of you who say I am completely unqualified, my response is "too f*cking bad".  I have endured two illegal presidents in my lifetime and now we have a bunch of right wing thugs in the judiciary and while that is obviously OK with you it is not OK with me.

You want a country?  You want a democracy?  You failed to do anything and your opportunity is over. Now lets see what someone else can do.

As Putin has said, paraphrasing here, "America has made too many mistakes" and he is right.  Our first mistake was to allow the Republicans and Fox News to exist.

Note: OK, if it were a true dictatorship, it wouldnt matter what I said, and of course it doesnt matter what I say, now does it? See!  But seriously folks, we have one fucked up country here and I am not seeing our political elite responding in a coherent and holistic way.