From around 2006 and until Obama was sworn in, I heard several people express their ominous certainty that Bush wasn’t going to go peacefully. He was going to declare himself dear leader for life instead. Obviously that didn’t happen.
These days I’ve already heard plenty of grumbling that Obama isn’t going to go peacefully after the next election. Instead he’s going to declare himself dear leader for life instead. I think it’s just about as obvious this won’t happen either.
**But what if it did? **
Say it’s January, 2021, and our next president has been voted out of office. Just before the new president is sworn in, the current one completely loses their mind and decides that being dictator sounds pretty awesome and refuses to vacate the white house. We’ll also go with the current/past rumors and also stipulate that the president has a lot of people with guns on his/her side, so it wouldn’t be as simple as getting a couple of secret service men to tackle them and drag them away.
What would really happen in this case?
I figure that even if they get a lot of the military on their side, they’ll still soon be dead through an assassination. Probably within that same week, if not day.
The Anglo-American political tradition is one that has great respect for the rule of law and and fealty to the office, rather than the person. You don’t get to be a senior military or civilian official in the US without a thorough understanding of that principal. No general or executive official would go along with such a plan, and when President Nutbar’s term is up he would simply be escorted off the White House grounds to freely yell at the clouds. And they’d probably change his email password.
I just can’t imagine a scenario where an outgoing president manages to get a lot of people with guns on his side. But if that is a core part of your question, then people are going to be killed, and the Consitution will win out.
I think the new president would live elsewhere away from the White House and the country would take orders from him. The old ex president would just be ignored.
A key excerpt from the oath of office/enlistment for the uniformed services:
The same words are in the oaths taken by Federal Employees including those who’s jobs involve guns (like the Secret Service). The hypothetical puts the President who tries to retain power pretty squarely in the domestic enemy to the Constitution camp.
I think the OP makes some assumptions that just refusing to be dragged out of the Oval Office constitutes “holding onto the Presidency.” As most of the answers make clear, the office is not a desk, a room, a building or even a city. President Sanders could just take charge from the Vermont White House.
ETA: As long as none of the flags there have gold fringes. That would change everything.
He doesn’t even need that really. When the previous president’s term expires, then he is ex-president and the ex-president-elect is president. This became clear when I read that Lyndon Johnson was president as soon as Kennedy was declared dead, even before he took his oath of office. I suppose that if some far out guy was elected and the military decided he was unacceptable, something like could happen, although I don’t believe it. What kind of circles do you inhabit that you regularly hear such nonsense?
There have been some dedicated people who have run the numbers and determined that a rogue government simply could not hold the country without drafting millions of people. The key feature that preserves a republican form of government is simply the vast scale of the United States and its corresponding low population density, supplemented by widespread civilian ownership of firearms and ammunition. I don’t know when exactly the usurper would be kicked out, but it’s improbable that he would last more than a few days at most. A autarch would need the support of a substantial fraction of the population, which negates the benefits of being a dictator for life not beholden to democratic processes.
Mostly the part that says "Former President Ronald Reagan told Barbara Walters in a 1986 interview that the 22nd Amendment “was a mistake,” while former President Bill Clinton has always believed in the option for a president to seek reelection at a later time – even if he has already served twice.
“Shouldn’t a president be able to take two terms, take time off and run again?” Clinton said in an MSNBC interview in November. “I’ve always thought that should be the rule. I think as a practical matter, you couldn’t apply this to anyone who has already served, but going forward, I personally believe that should be the rule.”
In a way isn’t Billery going to do just that? Love them or not, it’s legal the way its being done and God bless them both for it if she wins.
But I digress; it isn’t what the OP is talking about. We’re talking about someone losing an election, or not being allowed to run again, and simply staying in place. Even if he (to use the sexist shorthand) had “his”" Party in control of both the House and Senate, my money is on him ending up in a rubber room under guard in short order. We’re an odd nation; break the law and we can understand it. Debate the same point of law over and over again and we will celebrate it. Just flat-out ignore the law and even your closest friends and advisers will start backing away.
I agree they could certainly bar and/or remove him from the Oval Office. But I wonder if they would have to go through the housing courts in order to remove him and the Former First family from the Residence. Most jurisdictions have pretty tenant friendly laws regarding tenancy and eviction and it’s hard to just throw someone out of an apartment the’ve lived in for 8 years regardless of the terms and conditions of their residency.
That would be the greatest CNN sideshow ever – President Trump taking the Obamas to court to evict them, Obama giving considered speeches explaining that he cannot in good conscious let that asshat monkey butt within 200 yards of the Lincoln Bedroom, Michele enlisting the support of the interior design community, Trump building a big wall around the White House to keep out the Obamas and other Mexicans and then making Obama pay for it.