SUBRAMANIAN: Cenk Uygur's run for presidency is deeply flawed
Column: Whadda I Know
On October 12, Turkish-American political commentator and founder of "The Young Turks," Cenk Uygur, announced his run for the presidency of the U.S. This announcement has seemingly come out of nowhere and is predicated on some clear falsehoods about the American populace.
Uygur has made it very clear that he is unlikely to win, but his run is not designed for victory but for shaping the Democratic primary.
His first assumption is that President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will drop out of the race. In his announcement, Uygur explains that the public perception of Biden's handling of the economy has been lackluster. Thus, it is only natural that Biden will lose the general election, but Uygur's assessment may be inaccurate.
Currently, Biden holds a 78 percent approval rating from Democrats, which bodes well in a primary. Furthermore, Democrats have been very successful in the recent special elections, which have been predictive of national elections. Given that Biden is effectively the party leader, if he was genuinely doing poorly, then it is likely that Republicans would be winning these.
Furthermore, Biden has shown great success with the Democrats being able to keep the Senate ahead of what was supposedly a red wave. While Biden may have a bumpy road to his re-election, it is still realistic to say that he has a chance to win.
Uygur then explains that if he manages to secure 20 to 25 percent of the democratic electorate, other more qualified candidates will step in, like Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) or Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI). This is just extremely unlikely. Most people do not know who Uygur is.
In a YouGov poll, Uygur is ranked 430 among the most popular "Contemporary TV Personalities." Much of his support comes from millennials, a group known for having lower voter turnout than older generations. Furthermore, when Uygur ran for California's 25th Congressional District, he only got 6.6 percent of the total votes, failing to make it to the runoff. All of these reasons support the argument that Uygur is unlikely to get the 20 to 25 percent vote share he expects.
What puts the nail in the coffin is that a candidate in the Democratic primary did get more than 20 percent of the vote share in a Democratic poll: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. But this got very little comment from Biden himself. Given this, it is unlikely that Uygur could make such an impact on Biden if someone even with the Kennedy name could not.
Even if we give Uygur the best-case scenario that he can get the vote share that he desires and that Biden miraculously drops out of the race, this would still not make him President of the U.S.
For those who do not know, Uygur was born in Istanbul, Turkey, and immigrated to the U.S. This means that Uygur is a naturalized citizen, not a natural-born citizen, thus not meeting the qualifications set up by Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution. In his announcement, Uygur states that the Supreme Court case of Schneider v. Rusk would circumvent this issue. This is a clear misunderstanding of the case.
In Schneider v. Rusk, the case centered around a foreign-born American citizen who lost citizenship under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 due to living abroad. She sued, claiming that her 14th Amendment rights were violated since her naturalization as an American citizen was being treated differently compared to a native-born U.S. citizen.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of her that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 was discriminatory. Uygur is taking the decision and trying to apply a very broad interpretation of it. Uygur misses that the ruling provided does not apply to Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution.
"The rights of citizenship of the native born and of the naturalized person are of the same dignity and are coextensive. The only difference drawn by the Constitution is that only the 'natural born' citizen is eligible to be President," according to Justice William O. Douglas. "While the rights of citizenship of the native born derive from Section 1 of the 14th Amendment and the rights of the naturalized citizen derive from satisfying, free of fraud, the requirements set by Congress, the latter, apart from the exception noted."
Based on this decision, it is clear that the ruling was not meant to be broadly applied to overruling Article II, Section 1.
Even if Uygur were to win the Democratic nomination and become the President, this would likely have to go to the Supreme Court, which has embraced a more originalist position, as evident in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization and New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, putting a significant barrier between Uygur and the Presidency.
The other way that Uygur could get around this would be to get an amendment to the Constitution somehow passed. This was attempted by the late Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) in 2003 with his Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment, more colloquially known as the Arnold Amendment, and it did not get voted on.
What kills this chance of happening is that it was not very popular with Americans and that there are many structural barriers to getting an amendment passed. Needless to say, it would be a huge investment in time, money and other resources to resolve this dispute that the Democratic Party could avoid just by nominating Biden, a natural-born citizen.
While I truly believe that Uygur is trying to run a campaign with a cause that he genuinely believes in, his calculations are completely absurd and put his view of the world into question. The Democratic Party deserves to have a serious primary. I would encourage people to run a proper primary challenge if they believe they can serve as a viable alternative to Biden. Ultimately, Uygur is not the figure to do this.
But hey, whadda I know?
Kiran Subramanian is a senior in the School of Arts and Sciences majoring in economics and political science. His column, "Whadda I Know," runs on alternate Wednesdays.
*Columns, cartoons and letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Targum Publishing Company or its staff.
YOUR VOICE | The Daily Targum welcomes submissions from all readers. Due to space limitations in our print newspaper, letters to the editor must not exceed 900 words. Guest columns and commentaries must be between 700 and 900 words. All authors must include their name, phone number, class year and college affiliation or department to be considered for publication. Please submit via email to oped@dailytargum.com by 4 p.m. to be considered for the following day's publication. Columns, cartoons and letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Targum Publishing Company or its staff.
