It’s also what Dems were predicting about Bush.
The primary problem with a Trump presidency is the risk of destruction of our democratic ideals. What you propose would replace a risk of such destruction with the certainty.
If the 22nd Amendment were not in place, and if Obama had defied tradition like FDR did by running for a third term, and if he had then won the Democratic primary, I would then vote for him over Trump, or over most other plausible Republican contenders. But that’s the strongest statement I can make along these lines. I might even have voted for him in the primary over Hillary Clinton, since I consider the avoidance of political dynasties to be more important than the (pre-22nd) tradition of only two terms… but in this counterfactual world where the 22nd was never passed, it probably wouldn’t have been Hillary Clinton running, but rather Bill again.
Oh for crying out loud would you just get over yourself already.
Why not? If she’d been running this year, she probably could have won as a write-in candidate.
Be more than illegal. It would pretty much pull out the underpinnings of our democracy.
Be pissed that Trump won all you want. Protest (without violence) all you want. Hell, even call up the electors and beg them to be faithless and vote for someone other than trump.
If Barak Obama stays in the whitehouse past January 20th, then we do not live in a constitutional country anymore.
Much as I don’t like it, Trump is almost certainly going to be our next president, but even in the small chance that he is not, Obama cannot continue to be.
Yeah, I was going to write “Obamacare,” but I didn’t want to use an inflammatory buzzword. But you nailed it. Also, “The foreign Muslim’s gonna grab our guns!”
the problem is that feature x, y, or z isn’t why people don’t like Obama care. It’s because feature x, y, or z got them higher costs and loss of their doctor. That was the reality against the [del]soundbite[/del] promise of lower healthcare and retention of doctors.
This is why Trump is President.
No, because I am not insane.
No. If anyone’s going to shitcan the Constitution, I expect it to be Trump, but I don’t think he will either.
No! I’m in support of instituting more term limits, not eliminating the one we already have.
But not by much. The margin of victory was very small, and appears to be largely due to Democrats not showing up to vote. Trump’s victory in Michigan was so close they’re still counting. He just barely won Florida, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Trump’s win was incredibly narrow.
If the Constitution had been amended to allow Obama to run again, and everything else being equal, he would have won. Even a small increase in Democratic turnout caused by the much more charismatic and scandal-free Obama easily wins the election; you flip Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, and that’s the election quite easily. There is no state that flips back to Trump.
If Obama had been running for a third term, though, he wouldn’t be scandal free. Something equivalent to the email non-issue (probably around executive orders) would have been invented and magnified beyond all reason. (Same for Bernie, by the way, which is why those “Bernie would have won!” folks are nutty, too).
No.
No.
Maybe if we were under attack from space aliens, otherwise no.
The only politician I can recall trying something like this was Rudy Giuliani. He tried to extend his term after 9/11 for three additional “transition” months. He told Mark Green and Mike Bloomberg that if they didn’t agree to the extension, he would try to get around the term limit law (the same law Bloomberg circumvented years later) and run for a third term. The NY Assembly told him to go pound sand.
I think you have your answers clearly here. The answer is “no” . In spite of what you may wish and dream, more people don’t want what you want, and perhaps you should try to learn to accept that a majority of other people have opinions that disagree with yours.
The answer is “NO” I would prefer to see Trump in the white house than destroy the constitution.
Okay, just to be contrarian, I managed to imagine a situation where I’d say it’s a good idea. I would never ever support any sort of coup or whatever else it would take to keep Obama in office. (Although if I were going to ever support a coup, keeping Obama and ditching Trump would be the best possible circumstance for it.) But what if Trump decided, “Hey, I’m not cut out for this shit. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. So I’m just gonna appoint Obama to a cabinet position, and get his opinion on EVERYTHING. And I’m gonna defer to his wisdom on pretty much EVERYTHING.” As far as I know (please correct me if I’m wrong) that would be legal, and constitutional, and not a blow to liberal democracy, like Obama actually retaining the presidency. And it would be a hell of a lot better than letting Trump use his own decision-making skills. But it seems… unlikely to happen.
And what the loony right said about Clinton. Probably further back than that too but pre-internet who had to literally subscribe to their newsletter.
Oh, hardly. Remember Trump barely scraped a win. He lost the popular vote, and that was running against an extremely unpopular candidate. Had the Democrats run an even slightly more popular candidate, they must have had a good chance of winning. And Obama is pretty popular these days.
As for Pennsylvania and Michigan having “turned too far to the red”, Trump’s margin of victory in Pennsylvania was 1.2$, and in Michigan 0.3%. It’s entirely possible that a more popular Democrat - like, say, Obama - could have taken both states.
If he did it illegally, no. If somehow the Senate suddenly passed a constitutional amendment to repeal the term limit and then the electoral college went insane and enough defected to vote for him? I might start to agree that the election was rigged and start openly wondering if 9/11 killed JFK during the fake moon landing.
If, in principle, we didn’t have a term limit would I vote him for a prospective third term? That’s a very complicated question. I’d be tempted to say “yes”, but I’d also want to be careful about stifling new ideas and progressive movement in the party. Obama has done a great job, but we can do better especially with regards to drone strikes and using an automated panopticon with no real oversight. (If the primaries were otherwise the same, but with an Obama/Clinton/Bernie trio instead of just Clinton/Bernie, I’d definitely go Obama, though).