God knows they tried.  Members of  the U.S. Congress in 1866 (the 39th, if you’re interested) saw to it that the 14th amendment was passed and ratified.  One of three Reconstruction Amendments, it has within it a section, section 3, called the Disqualificaion Clause, that deals with insurrectionists.  After the Civil War, of course that is something that needed to be addressed.

As with all constitutional amendments, I am sure  its prescribers felt they did their best to provide for furture implementation.  Unfortunately, the 39th Congress did not include in the wording of the Disqualification Clause any procedure for determining who is subject to disqualification.  And so the current Supreme Court found itself dealing with its third case involving a former president of the United States in Trump vs Anderson.  That is the case which the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump should be disqualified from state ballots because   of his invoment in the January 6th attack on the Capitol Building.

Long story as short as I understand it, SCOTUS decided to avoid the nasty political entanglement of labeling Trump an insurrectionist.   They did reverse the Colorado Supreme Court, but not on grounds of insurrection.  They took the easy way out,  simply used a federalist apporoach and ruled no state can determine the eligibility of candidates for a federal election.

OK.  Understandable.  Kind of spineless, but as Justice Barrett stated, “The Court has settled a politically charged issue in the volitle season of a presidential election…the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up.”  That’s thoughtful, but in the end did not address the primary issue.  In fact, their decision made the clause almost moot, by fiat. SCOTUS ruled that any case involving an insurrection must be enforced through legislation enacted by congress.  In other words, the Court passed the buck back to congress.

Good luck with that.  Republicans will never disqualify thier presidential candidate on insurrectionist grounds. They already proved that by not convicting Trump when he was impeached for just that.  How about Democrats.?  Hopefully that party will never be bllindsided by a presidential candidate who turns out to be a conniving, egomaniacal sexual preditor hellbent on grabbing power at any cost, but should it happen who knows.  So neither the Supreme Court, nor congress, will shoulder the responsibilty of determining when an act committed by a presidential candidate is insurrection.  Not now, probabaly not ever, if we continue to be locked into the belief of party infallibility.  I honestly think that 39th Congress would be embarrased by our current Supreme Court.  What they did is maybe politically prudent, but constitutionally negligent.

What happened on January 6th 2021, was an insurrection, and Trump incited it.  We all witnessed it with our own eyes.  If Trump should loose his 2024 presidential bid, there is a very good chance there will be more MAGA rampage.  That is the very stark reality of our political/cultural environment today, where a deranged narcissist has the perplexing capability  to cajole misguided members of his cultish following into believing his lies to the point of inflicting personal injury.  Trump has conducted a relentless attack on our laws and institutions, and exposed  ambiguity in our constitution.  Sadly, the Supreme Court missed an opportunity to clarify one of those constitutional defects.  It seems to me there should be urgency to repair any flaws in our democratic process that Trump has revealed.  November is not that far away.