Trump won't rule out 3rd term

Politics & Elections
501

I was rereading Trump v Anderson

Such power over governance, however, does not extend to federal officeholders and candidates. Because federal officers “‘owe their existence and functions to the united voice of the whole, not of a portion, of the people,’” powers over their election and qualifications must be specifically “delegated to, rather than reserved by, the States.”

emphasis added

The respondents nonetheless maintain that States may enforce Section 3 against candidates for federal office. But the text of the Fourteenth Amendment, on its face, does not affirmatively delegate such a power to the States.

emphasis added

But state-by-state resolution of the question whether Section 3 bars a particular candidate for President from serving would be quite unlikely to yield a uniform answer consistent with the basic principle that “the President . . . represent[s] all the voters in the Nation.”

Conflicting state outcomes concerning the same candidate could result not just from differing views of the merits, but from variations in state law governing the proceedings that are necessary to make Section 3 disqualification determinations.

Note: although this section is specifically about Section 3, look at all of the disagreement here we have on whether or not the 22 Amendment means Trump cannot run for VP. Also, some states do not have laws banning ineligible candidates from the ballot.

For the reasons given, responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with Congress and not the States.

Throughout the decision, SCOTUS said two key points were that

  1. The 14th Amendment specifically rebalanced the power between the Federal government and the States
  2. Section 5 specifically gave the power of enforcement via legislation to Congress not the states. Considering the discussion we had here on whether or not Section 3 was self-enforcing, are we convinced that despite not explicitly giving Congress the power to enforce the 22nd through legislation that they won’t say, “Well, Congress never passed a law against running for a third term.”

tl;dr We’re boned.

502

Well we are boned if the voters deem it so.

Which, to be fair, if the voters really are so damn-fire sure that three terms should be the limit, then they won’t vote for Trump again. At this point, even on far-right message boards it’s pretty evenly split about whether a third term is a good idea. And that’s the hard-core MAGA base.

Conversely, if the voters really do want Trump to serve a third term, well that’s democracy, right?

Put another way, if we actually have free and fair elections (or even a rough approximation thereof) and the Democrats can’t nominate a candidate that can beat a Donald Trump who is blatantly violating the norm of two terms as well as the explicit text of the Constitution, then they don’t really deserve to be a political party anymore.

503

Mike Johnson doesn’t think Trump can run for a third term.

504

What a vague, megaweasel response to the question: Are you comfortable with…
At no point did he say: No.
What evidence has ever shown that Trump “knows about” or even merely attempts to respect constitutional restrictions?

505

None of that is news. The news is that Trump sees the “run as VP” approach as the least appealing. And that ought to inform our views as well, since he has more information than we do as far as his own mental state as well as the list of people he feels he can trust.

There are many, many things that need to go exactly right with this scenario. All of them start with SCOTUS adopting a ridiculous reading of the 14th amendment, and end with the expectation that a man who was just elected to the most powerful position in the world, representing the most faithless party in the world, deciding to hand the reins back to an 82-year-old dementia patient when he’s under no legal obligation to so so, and in fact he could probably just as easily smother him with a MyPillow with the security detail looking the other way.

The first point is important, because while SCOTUS has demonstrated that they’ll do damn near anything, Roberts also seems to be heavily influenced by his expectation of who will win. He’s supported Trump because opposing Trump and then being defied by him will make the court look powerless and irrelevant. So if Roberts doesn’t feel if Trump’s 14th amendment play will put him in office, then he won’t back it.

Trump will probe every seam, there can be no doubt about it, but we’re well-served to be realistic about the potential paths.

506

Stranger

507

I mean, considering who we’re talking about, that’s probably the closest he’s constitutionally capable of coming to publicly disagreeing with Dear Leader. I’m surprised he didn’t say “I haven’t heard about that” like he usually does when he doesn’t want to answer a question about Trump.

508

I think this is the answer right here. If being “elected” is the problem, he just won’t have the election. It might be because of the stated excuse that Antifa is going to destroy all the beautiful progress he has made. It might be because he plans to invade Canada (or, God forbid, such an invasion is in progress). Or it might just be that he has decided that because so many people have come up to him with tears in their eyes begging him to stay on as President for Life, he has an endless mandate and there is simply no need for an election because he’ll win it anyway.

For the 22nd Amendment, what is the enforcement mechanism for it? Who automatically becomes President if the current office holder simply refuses to leave? I know the answer should be “the winner of the election” but the people who wrote the amendment didn’t account for the scenario where there is no election. Trump’s “last” term expires at noon on Jan 20, 2029. But if there is no election and he has declared himself to remain President because reasons, what then? Who would be the actual President? You wouldn’t have one and since he would be the closest thing, he could hang onto the office by virtue of no one having the power to take it away from him. And all he has to do is break the rule once because there is no realistic enforcement mechanism if he has a friendly Congress and Supreme Court making excuses for him.

509

Good thing it’s not up to the president whether to “have the election” or not.

510

Was part way through composing a question when this helpfully was posted. :upside_down_face:

Wasn’t a key factor in the SCOTUS decision in Bush v Gore 2000 that the disputed Florida recount could not be relied to be completed prior to the December 12 “safe harbor” deadline set by Title 3 of the United States Code. Because while you can operate a country without a head of government (and haven’t you guys had plenty of practice) you can’t operate without a head of state.

As above at noon on Jan 20th 2029 POTUS 47 turns into a pumpkin. And sufficiently in advance of this the new head of state needs to be determined/agreed so they can be sworn by @12:01pm.

45/47 can’t just continue to reign because a suitable/eligible replacement hasn’t been organised. Where that person comes from and with what imprimatur is outside my ken. President pro tempore Senate? Or is that body prorogued and not in session at that time?

Of course, relying on precedent in unprecedented times is fraught.

511

If Trump tries to halt the elections in November, then by January the country will most likely be in a state of chaos, and who the President is will be decided by men with guns.

512

Well it does say you need two thirds of the states to agree to hold one, and no blue state would ever agree.

513

There won’t be any Republican primaries if Trump says that he wants another term. Elections need to be thrown into chaos early in the game; chaos is necessary for a criminal, authoritarian administration to cast doubt on the process in its entirety.

“It’s a completely new situation and the old rules don’t apply” will be heard early and often.

514

Trump came much closer than ever to saying “nope, can’t do it” yesterday. Sounds like he also had a talk with Mike Johnson who was not supportive of the idea (and most non-emergency pathways would require collaboration with Congress).

515

Bolding mine. I’ll take minus a decade, two if I can get it.

516

Wow, so he’s actually dying and he knows it.

517

There’s two different parts to enacting an amendment.

The first part is passing a proposal. This can be done by two thirds of the House and two thirds of the Senate. Or it can be done by a convention that was called by two thirds of the states.

If the proposal is passed, it’s sent to the states to be ratified. There are again two methods for ratification. (Congress picks which one is used.) It can be ratified by three quarters of the state legislatures or by conventions in three quarters of the states.

I was referring to ratification conventions in my post.

518

Yeah, you can keep saying that up until the point that Trump says, “I don’t think we need to have an election in 2028,” and his supplicants in Congress decide not to certify results from the states (or at least the ones with adverse outcomes for Republicans).

It’s getting a little tiresome hearing about how ‘the courts’, ‘the Congress’, ‘the Constitution’, ‘the generals’, et cetera will form a bulwark against the authoritarianism that Trump aspires to even as he values over one supposedly sacred cow after another, such as that he wouldn’t be able order ICE to deport people without due process, effectively dismantle entire government agencies, pull back funding designated to Congress, et cetera. Right now, at this moment, we have an avowed would-be dictator (“Only on Day One,” he promised, which we should accept because strongmen always give up power once they’ve achieved modest goals, amirite?) who is openly taking bribes from foreign governments, authorizing multi-million dollar payouts to himself, violating ethics laws like the Hatch Act and the Emoluments Clause, unilaterally imposing absurdly massive tariffs with no Congressional concurrence, threatening war against allies and actually ordering the military to engage in extrajudicial killing preparatory to what is shaping up to be a conflict with Venezuela, rounding up people (including some citizens) in ‘detainment facilities’ that look an awful lot like what people in an earlier era would describe as ‘concentration camps’, and oh-by-the-way demolishing parts of the White House, which is not only a government building that he does not own or have authority to make massive and costly alterations to without approved planning and Congressional approval, but is also a US National Historic Landmark which, at least in theory, should offer strong protections against modification or destruction without an involved process of review and approval. Trump and members of his regime have dismissed career civil servants that he does not have legal authority to fire; harassed, belittled, and defunded scientists, physicians, financial experts, and other federal employees because he personally didn’t like what their agencies or programs do even if it is critical to the safety, health, economic stability, and physical security of the public; and appointed manifestly grossly unqualified and nakedly corrupt people to positions of high executive authority with fully approval and confirmation of the Republican-dominated Congress and a wink-and-nod from the conservative majority of the Supreme Court even when it violates all accepted standards and norms of governance of the last century of the United States.

When Congress somehow finds its authority to control the purse, elects to take back authority over threatening war and imposing tariffs, reject obviously unqualified candidates for Cabinet-level and independent agency leadership positions, and calls members of Trump’s regime to account for their multitude of ethical and legal transgressions, or the Supreme Court finds a backbone and starts actually vigorously protecting long-accepted Constitutional principles, then I’ll give some credence to the statement that “it’s not up to the president whether to ‘have the election’ or not.” Until that time, when Trump and his boosters talk about ‘a third term’ or ‘not leaving’ I’m going to credit them with actually saying out loud what their intentions are and how they plan to go about achieving them.

Stranger

519

While I share your anger and concern at all of the things you listed, my question about not having elections is this: If MAGA/Trump were already planning to just cancel future elections, then why are they spending so much time, effort, money, political will and pressure on states to gerrymander? Why would any of that be necessary if the plan was just to cancel future elections? Seems like a terrible waste of effort and resources to try to rig something you already know you won’t have to worry about.

520

Perhaps just for the midterms, so there’s a good majority in 2028 to roll over and play dead.