How would the current Republicans respond if Trump wins and tries to overturn term limits, despite his age?
They would look at the polls of their base, and if the base is OK with it, then “All hail his royal majesty please allow me to lick your boot.”
So, is this actually declaring himself king or just trying to get rid of term limits (though what the point would be at his age I’m not sure)? I mean, those are two different things, especially as odd a circumstance this would be (i.e. he was elected, then lost an election, then elected again).
Sure, just the term limits.
I think they would be ok with that, especially in this circumstance, as if he’s re-elected he’d only get one term. I’m unsure how this actually works, to be honest, as I don’t think this has ever happened (I know TR tried to do this, but he was in a 3rd party because the Republicans didn’t want him as their candidate and basically didn’t win), but my assumption is you get a total of 2 terms, even if they aren’t consecutive. So, my WAG is Republicans would want him to get 2 consecutive terms if he got re-elected so he could fuck up the country properly. No half-assed lame-duck single-term presidency here!
The term limit is in the Constitution, and it’s 2 total, not consecutive:
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once.
So to “ignore” it, he’d have to get the Supreme Court to rule that some remarkably plain language in the Constitution somehow doesn’t apply. If that happens, forget it, our democracy is well and truly dead and we’re in a Trumpocracy.
He could try to push through a repeal of the 22nd Amendment, but it takes 2/3 of the Representatives and 2/3 of the Senators, followed by 3/4 of the state legislatures to push it through. So the Republicans would need 2/3 of each house + 38 state legislatures to be “OK” with it.
The two term limit was just a gentleman’s agreement in the time of TR. It wasn’t law until the 22nd amendment passed, which was because of FDR. So if Trump is reelected in 2024, there probably wouldn’t be a 2028 election at all, since Trump would just stay in until he dies or decides to leave. It would be a hard coup.
Considering their responses to every time he “jokingly” mentioned running for three or more terms, or even just being “president for life”, they’d be just fine with it.
Yes, I’ve heard this before…I believe the right-wingers thought Obama would do that, and IIRC, left-wingers were worried Bush II would do this. And, frankly, that’s a totally different question than the one I think the OP was asking.
Contrary to most on this board, I don’t think the majority of Republicans would be good with Trump being declared King of America(tm…arr). I do think they would be ok with at least an initiative to change the current rules to take into account this circumstance.
Life is a party when you’re a member of the king’s court. Current Reps would be just fine. A few here or there might Cheney themselves out of favor, but many of them are old enough just to bow out (retire) if it gets too bad and just sit back and be quiet until they die.
Is there anything that would force a consrvative Supreme Court to rule on the matter if Republican Congresscritters said “It is fine and dandy with us!” ?
“He wants to be president for life!” has been said about just about every president in my life. The big difference is, that used to be said by people who were clearly cranks, and no one of substance ever took them seriously.
With Trump, it was Trump himself saying these things, and lots of people not on the fringes of society seemed to think it sounded like a good idea.
I think they’d do what they always do, bend over and say “thank you sir may I have another?” Suppose he wins or steals the election in 2024. Then in 2028 he either runs again or declares that there’ll be no more elections. Let’s say he runs for a third term in 2028. Do you think for a minute that Republicans would keep him off the ballot just because he’d be ineligible? Or if he won or stole that election, that they wouldn’t go ahead and ignore the Constitution? Even if the Supreme Court said he couldn’t get a third term, what if they just ignored the Court? With a majority in Congress to certify the election, I don’t think they’d lose a minute of sleep over what the Supreme Court says.
I’m sure a Democratic governor could sue on behalf of his state. If the lower courts found in favor of the governor, Trump could appeal to the SC, who, being conservatives, would either have to rule on it to save King Trump, or give up on the King Trump fantasy. If the lower courts fond in favor of Trump, the SC could just let that stand without ruling.
AFAIK, if there was an initiative to change the 22nd Amendment it wouldn’t need the Supreme Court to get involved, just the regular process that we use to change any Amendment…which is to say, I, personally wouldn’t be too worried it would actually happen. Like I said, I think Republicans might try to do this (i.e. change the term limits, or maybe modify the Amendment to talk about 2 consecutive terms if there is a break between the first term and the second or something along those lines) but actually doing it? I doubt it.
But unless I’m misunderhearing you, I don’t see why the USSC would or needs to get involved.
If he steals the 2024 election, they might just be brazen enough to say in 2028, “Well, he wasn’t “elected” to office last time, since he stole the election, so he’s still eligible to run this time!”
AFAIK I didn’t bring up changing the 22nd Amendment.
This gets into…saying what, exactly? To change the term limits? Yes, I think that’s possible…and it’s doable within our system as well. Just like changing the 2nd Amendment is doable and within our system. It’s by design. And, sure, I think there are quite a lot of folks who would like this. There were quite a lot that thought about this wrt Obama, too.
That’s different than the implication there are a lot of folks who want to make Trump king for life (even his life, which is probably measured in a few years at best), though. I don’t see that as a thing that many outside of fringe whacko types think would be a good idea or would support.
Then no idea what your point was (since congresscritter types can’t, by fiat, change this). Sorry.
The issue isn’t changing the Constitution. As you say, that’s really hard, and even if they started right now, it would be many years before they even came to making such a big change.
The real issue is, what if Trump just ignores the Constitution? It’s clear he personally doesn’t give a rat’s ass about how the government is supposed to work. If he wants to do something, he’ll just do it. So the real question is, if, after winning in 2024, he runs again in 2028, who will stop him?
Will the GOP simply deny him the nomination?
If the GOP nominates him, will GOP dominated election officials in the various States deny him the right to run?
If he ends up on the ballots in enough states, would a GOP dominated Congress refuse to certify his EC votes?
If Congress certifies the EC votes, would a Republican dominated Supreme Court declare him Not The President?