Summary
Despite the 22nd Amendment barring a third term (“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”), Trump continues to suggest he could run again, raising the idea at a Black History Month event and with Republican governors.
Legal experts say the Constitution is clear that he cannot run, though some supporters, including Rep. Andy Ogles and Steve Bannon, are pushing for a constitutional amendment or a 2028 campaign.
Meanwhile, Trump has expanded executive authority in his second term, drawing criticism for undermining congressional checks.
To be fair he wasn’t supposed to run for a second term as a convicted felon, but he managed that.
I’d like to say I’d be surprised if he could win another election as his popularity plummets, but the US voters have proven themselves to be stupid and/or lazy.
I wouldn’t be surprised. He promised an end of elections and voting. This is what his voters wanted.
Take the good with the bad, if we have to re-do the voting system I say we move towards a more popular-voting system and get rid of the electoral collage, it’s time to shake up the gerrymandering of districts in favor of GOP Senators/Congress.
Time for an overhaul!
I think he’s aiming more to become an emperor. That said, I like the positive outlook! If he fucking ruins everything, there’s always room for the Americans to build something better in the mess he leaves.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. The abject destruction of all aspects of law and government being carried out by Trump/Musk right now is, objectively, a bad thing that’s going to hurt a lot of people very badly. But once their system inevitably completely collapses, I think a lot of Americans are going to be open to new ideas of governance.
Previously, we could all see problems in our systems but the path to actually getting them solved involved generations of focused political maneuvering to actually stand a chance of putting them in place. Take federal adoption of ranked choice voting as an example. Many people would say they were in favor of that but we all knew it had a snowball’s chance in hell of ever actually happening because of how our system of governance was set up. I fully expected we’d just coast along with FPTP voting until we’re all dead from climate catastrophe.
But now, we’re actually looking at a potential full scale, whole hog destruction of the foundations of American government. Whoever inherits it afterward - and someone will, this reign won’t last forever, it’s incapable of sustaining itself even if we all just left them alone - has the potential for nearly a ground-up rewrite of some fundamental assumptions of American government. We’re talking about changing the baseline voting systems, changing eligibility for office for many roles, even fundamentally changing the way our representation is appointed (such as by population size instead of by land, for instance - one rep for every, say, 500,000 citizens, not two reps per state regardless of population) and so on.
Rising from our own ashes may just end up being one of the best things to ever happen to America, in a historical context. Inevitably, no matter how this farce ends up resolving, we will have an opportunity for this afterward. Trump, in his bumbling fury, has swept away decades worth of red tape and inertia that we otherwise would have had to struggle through to make this happen, and in addition has galvanized a lot of latent anger with the system within the citizens. We will have a real chance to turn that into something constructive after all this finishes in whatever way it does.
That’s my light at the end of the tunnel for all this, and in a weird way, I guess I have Trump to thank for this. His signature style of completely ignoring norms and regulations means that he can blast through a ton of bullshit while being completely immune to the feedback, and we can just build it all up again from scratch later in a term or two instead of taking six decades to effect gradual change.
Previously I would have called this accelerationism and maybe condemned it, but we’re in the shit now, so may as well get it over with I guess. He’s already throwing all his toys out of the crib no matter what I say about it so I’m no longer ashamed about cheering for it. America has had a deep sickness in its government for a very long time and maybe now we can excise it. We’re losing a lot of healthy tissue alongside it, and that’s bad, but it’s not likely to kill us altogether. We’ll grow back stronger.
Alaska already has ranked choice voting
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What asteroid? I haven’t heard
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Emperor Trump, a man who cannot be trusted to run a charity in the state of New York….
That, and we have that stupid Electoral College. Oh, and lots and lots of fuckery from the Republican apparatchiks when it comes to running our elections.
I hate to ‘akshualllyyy’, but actually there’s nothing in US law or the constitution that precludes a convicted felon from running for or holding office.
There was a lot of legal talk leading up to the last election about that, along with plenty of surprise that was the case. It turns out it was another of those gentlemen’s agreements that was never codified because up until very recently, most people just assumed voters were smart enough not to elect someone like that, so codifying it wasn’t worth anyone’s time.
If we ever wrest control back from these ghouls, there are a shit-ton of things that need codifying.
e: a few words
The Constitution barred him from running again after he incited a riot on the capitol. Yet here we are.
Forgive me if my faith in the Constitution is waning a bit.
The constitution is fine. The government has lost their will to enforce it, that’s the problem.
Who’s gonna stop him from running for or taking office for a third time? The Democrats? Are they gonna write a strongly worded letter? The Supreme Court? Do they have anyone with guns who will listen to them?
He’ll be SLaMmeD in that strongly worded letter, they’ll pat themselves on the back for a job well done, then run another candidate without a primary.
I have to say, it would be extremely funny if they changed the constitution and then Trump lost to Obama
No its so much more fucked than that. It’s literally god emperor language.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-third-term-constitutional-amendment-andy-ogles-2025020
The wording of Ogles’ amendment proposal suggests that previous consecutive two-term presidents, such as Barack Obama or George W. Bush, would not be allowed to run for a third term.
Funnily enough, the same thing happened with Putin in Russia
Of course he’ll run and of course he’ll win and og course he’ll just ignore the laws about it and of course nobody is going to stop him
I can’t see him still being alive by then. He’s going to have a stroke or coronary before then.
Or some other mysterious 3rd option
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We were all hoping for that last time and look where we are now. …
8 years of horrible lifestyle later.
It says elected. He has no intention of having another election.
Criminals aren’t allowed to run for president either. Here we are.
According to the Supreme Court of the United States of America, Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee are both eligible for the office of the United States of America (if they were still alive at least).
Of course criminals are allowed to run for president
I’d vote for Debs
Any time Trump jokes, it’s the camel’s nose under the tent.
I’ve never heard that phrase before that’s an excellent phrase.
Can you enlighten me? I don’t understand the phrase.
I also had no idea. This is what I found.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel’s_nose
The camel’s nose is a metaphor for a situation where the permitting of a small, seemingly innocuous act will open the door for larger, clearly undesirable actions.
Camels, much like dogs, cats, and other domesticated animals, are constantly pushing their boundaries. The phrase “a camel’s nose under the tent” is indicative of a camel that is attempting to find a way inside the tent so that they may eat the, most likely, food that has captured their attention with its scent.
This would be applicable to the Drumpf administration because they are, much like the camel, using a method of “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks,” as well as a method of overwhelming the media with birdshot. Namely, if you’re creating 50 stories a day, and doing 50 things a day, then the media and the government can’t keep up.
Again similar to our camel that has enough strength to tip the tent over, and create a royal mess, in its attempt to get in.
Edit: First time I have heard the phrase as well,.but that is the meaning I would take from context.
I looked it up when I saw it, it seems like it comes from a fable with a similar moral to “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”
A camel sticks his nose under the edge of a tent for warmth, it’s owner (or a stranger w/e) allows it to out of kindness. Then the camel slowly worms it’s entire body in the tent and refuses to budge.
It’s a slippery slope parable.
In a sane society Trump should be in prison.
Yeah, I don’t think he’s capable of an actual joke. I’m a big fan of this analysis…. https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/writer-perfectly-breaks-down-why-brits-dont-like-donald-trump-388956/
He’s gonna run anyways. Mark my words. He can’t leave office or he’s fucked. The constitution is nothing more than toilet paper at this point, if no one is going to stand up for it.
Decent chance he’ll croak before the end of his term. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part.
Wait until he learns about FDR and his third and fourth terms. That’s what he’ll use as his reasoning.
I’m a Brit so what do I know? But I can see him taking a leaf out of Putin’s playbook and running as VP to a family member running for President, possibly Eric. Then he’ll still be in control.
the constitution also directly bars that, but, it bars a lot of what Trump’s already done in the last month
The 22nd amendment, the one that bars him from running for a third presidential term, also bars him from running as a future VP. Legally he could be speaker of the house, or another high ranking unelected official, but he’s not inclined to follow laws anyway. Before Musk I would have said he wouldn’t want to be 2nd-in-power, so I would have thought having one of his sons hold a higher office than him wouldn’t happen. Everything is upside down now, so who knows what will happen
There’s an interesting, although ultimately flawed, argument that the 22nd says that a person who’s ineligible to hold the office of president can’t be VP, and that a person can only be elected to two full terms.
It’s an interesting argument that he’s not ineligible to hold office, so he could be VP despite not being able to be elected.It’s ultimately flawed because the intent of the amendment was clear, and if we’re working around it to that extent we’re really sort of done with the law anyway.
There is absolutely nothing barring Trump from running for a third term.
The Supreme Court literally just hand-waved away another Constitutional amendment that should have barred Trump from running for a 2nd term, let alone a third. And they basically did it on the legal precedent of “because fuck you, that’s why.” All 3 branches of government have completely ignored the blatant constitutional violations he’s committed since taking office. There’s absolutely nothing stopping the Supreme Court from just striking down another constitutional amendment because hey why not and letting the guy run as often as he wants.
And remember, we even had one state legislator asking why we even have elections instead of just handing the votes to Trump…
There was a little kernel of sanity behind that ruling, though. Absent a clear conviction for a crime that smells like insurrection, who gets to decide what insurrection means? I remember that there was a lot of talk of the “insurrection at the border” at the same time the ruling was being considered, as well as describing migrants as “military-age men”. I am positive that if the SC let Colorado take Trump off the ballot, Texas would have taken Biden off based on some bullshit theory that he was instigating a foreign invasion of migrants.
The language behind a third Presidential term is much, much clearer. The plain text of the amendment bars it, and if Trump decides to run again, several states will declare him ineligible on the spot. That will go to the SC, too. We’ll see what happens then.
There was a little kernel of sanity behind that ruling, though. Absent a clear conviction for a crime that smells like insurrection,
The House of Representatives, by a majority vote, found that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection and impeached him for this after January 6th. The Senate failed to vote to remove him from office, but this does not change the fact that he was found to have engaged in insurrection by the House of Representatives.
who gets to decide what insurrection means?
The House of Representatives already did.
Texas would have taken Biden off based on some bullshit theory that he was instigating a foreign invasion of migrants.
And when either the House of Representatives votes to impeach him for it, then he can be removed from the ballot as well. They tried, and failed. Repeatedly.
And if the courts just randomly decide that Biden’s actions constituted an insurrection, we have much bigger problems to deal with, as the courts at that point can just declare anything they want as an insurrection, including political dissent.
The language behind a third Presidential term is much, much clearer. The plain text of the amendment bars it
Going based on the “kernel of sanity” thing, the argument is that it was meant to bar more than two consecutive terms, and was not meant to bar non-consecutive terms. The argument is that those who wrote the amendment knew the importance of being specific, and if they wanted to bar non-consecutive terms, they’d have specifically said as much.
Unfortunately, most people don’t interpret the impeachment the way you do. They view the fact that he didn’t get thrown out of office as more of an acquittal, really. Although impeachment is a political process and not a judicial one, the impeachment itself in the House is more akin to an indictment while the trial in the Senate is meant to mirror a jury trial.
It says, elected more than twice. Who says there’s going to be an election?
That’s what I was thinking. Does anyone remember leading up to him taking over in '17 they were talking about how Obama was going to institute martial law and just stay in the Whitehouse without being elected?
They haven’t tried that one yet but they sure floated that someone else was going to do it.
The Republican Third Term Project is pushing this hard. They’re at CPAC drumming up support. I think the language is only specific to Trump though, so no other past president would be able to run again. It’s something like a president that has not served 2 consecutive terms.
Also, Trump doesn’t care about the constitution and neither do just about every GOP in office. They may say publicly that he can’t do it or whatever, but if it comes down to it, they would vote for it.
It is unlikely that the constitution will be amended. Democrats still (and will always) hold roughly 50% of seats in the Congress. So any proposal to amendment will not pass. However, there is a possibility of coup if Trump does not want to step down.
They just illegally fired, and replaced the joint chiefs. What makes you think they aren’t going to arrest and replace all the democratic representatives and senators?
We’re already past The Reichstag Fire
He will be trying to make The Fediverse illegal in the US within the next 6 months.
I could be wrong, but aren’t joint chiefs appointed by the president nonetheless?
You’re not wrong, there was nothing illegal about firing the joint chiefs.
It was stupid, but not illegal. Calling everything Trump does illegal, only serves to dilute the impact when he does actual illegal things.
Much like labeling everything ‘Nazi’, it only serves to cheapen the term.
Some Lemmy users even go so far as say there is equivalent of Reichstag fire event in US. Trump is only in office for one month and I didn’t see the Congress get burned, pinned the blame on an opposing group, and then made Trump demand for absolute power. Is Trump bad? Yes, but let’s not exaggerate. There are still checks and balance working as intended (many courts are still blocking many of Trump’s executive decisions after all). People need to relax and get a cool head first. Because decisions made on emotions will only blunder.
Unfortunately The Algorithm has learned that outrage is a form of engagement and so people who consume social media in place of news or education now are incentivized by social media’s reward systems to generate and view the most outrageous takes on any event.
My guy, 2 years from now, there will be a redder wave from a kangaroo election, and they will amend the Constitution and end whatever is left of democracy. CISA is gutted, and will be replaced with lackeys that will confirm the fake election. We’re cooked.
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There are still federal and state judges blocking many of Trump’s executive decisions, and half of population willing to resist. The checks and balance is still working as intended even if politicians and the other half of people itself had been compromised. I still wouldn’t call democracy itself completely dead yet.
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The US is right in a coup. Who knows what will be legal or illegal after that.
