Suppose we amended the constitution and repealed the twenty-second amendment… and replaced it with a new amendment that stated that a person could serve as many terms as the people wanted to elect them to - but they could not serve two consecutive terms. Ever.
How would that change how presidents went about their job? You’d no longer have a first term president who was in campaign mode because they wanted to win the next election, and you wouldn’t have a second term president focused on his or her “legacy” because there was a possibility that they could serve again in four years. But would this make for better or worse presidents?
There are inefficiencies involved in changing administrations. Not only are you replacing the one person in the Oval Office, but also lots and lots of other people (that person’s staff, cabinet, etc.), many of whom have to go through approval processes. And it arguably takes time for the President him/herself, and all of these other people, to learn how to do their jobs. So that’s one advantage to keeping the same President for more than one term in a row.
I think a case can be made for keeping term limits but increasing them to three terms rather than two. Part of the justification can be that the increasing complexity of the Presidency makes experience more valuable and it’s foolish to turn out popular Presidents after just 8 years. In all likelihood, Clinton and Obama would have won third terms quite easily and would have been vast improvements over their successors.
Out of curiosity, what’s the general consensus on Obama’s first term versus his second? And on Clinton’s first term versus his second? And on Reagan’s?
I’m against* all *such term limits. Imagine a new US President in 1941, having to lead the USA into war. Compare to FDR, already a hero of the people. Without FDR, there would be no full mobilization; who would stand for it? And then there would be no viable Western Front in Europe until the Russians reached Paris, which is to say no Western Front of importance. The sea and the Pyrenees would serve as Iron Curtain in the age to come. All for “term limits.”
The people want experience. They want incumbents. If they naturally turfed out all public servants on their own, there would be no need of term limits. The only reason to have term limits, then, is to deny the people what they want to vote for. Why?
Do you know better than your neighbors? Are they so stupid they need protected from the judgment that experience counts for a lot?
Or is this something proposed by someone who wants to win office, hold the glory of victory for a little while, and then jump away rather than devote one’s life to the responsibility? Ah, that’s what this was always about, I suspect.
In legislatures, term limits diminish the power of the constituent over the legislator, while increasing the power of the party. This is empirically true.
Term limits are a bad idea, they are destructive in practice, and they must be resisted.
More frequent elections, however, are quite reasonable and desirable.
In the executive, they weaken the democratic leader of your country, while doing nothing about the tyrant for life in another country that your leader might have inspired your people to oppose. Term limits have historically been put forth by those who seek to impose absolute dictatorship on foreign countries.
The GOP hated and feared FDR. So, term limits. But apparently they* loved *Hitler, and future leaders of the GOP were drawn from explicit Nazi supporters and America Firsters. And they installed Reza Pahlavi for life.
Term limits have historially been a tool to weaken democratically appealing leadership at home while installing dictators for life–“with whom we can do business”–elsewhere. They’re a scam.
The America First Committee, were actual, for-real, North American Nazi collaborators:
Gerald Ford, Potter Stewart, Sargent Shriver, John F. Kennedy. Wow.
Just – wow.
Well, two of those were Democrats. Sure. Not “liberals,” though, more like proto-neo-conservatives. And that was conservatism, then. “Let the world go to hell, we’re staying out of it.”
Prescott Bush was, vaguely, a Nazi collaborator. Prescott Bush - Wikipedia
His offspring tried to play at being America’s royal family. His grandson Dubya claimed to talk to God and implied that God talked back.
We think we’re civilized. We think we’re better. We use term limits to pretend we’re different from Papa Doc, the Greek rule-by-generals, and the Shah–but then we prop up Papa Doc, the Greek rule-by-generals, and the Shah.
We install dictators, while our own patrician Nazi-loving lords engage in a game of artificial churn to hide their true nature.* Gevalt.*
If FDR had been termed out in 1941 it would have been much harder to intern the Japanese. And a new President would have been a better reflection of the peoples mood in 1941.
I’m sorry, I went ad hominem upthread with all the Nazi associations. That was unfair.
I still think term limits are a fake solution, and decrease accountability to the electorate. More frequent elections are a better way to address the issue that term limits only pretends to address.
I think this would eliminate any kind of long-term thinking in government. Unpleasant, long-term issues like climate change would simply be eternally ignored in favour of short-term, damaging-but-consequences-later policies.
How about a slight modification? Presidents can serve two terms consecutively, but can’t run for a third term until another President has served a term.
I think in practice we wouldn’t see third terms, for many reasons:
Age.
Rising stars in the party don’t want to be held down.
The public’s anti-third term sentiment is pretty strong. We like to see someone new.
If a change were to be made, I would suggest that the President be elected for one and only one term of six years. That would immediately eliminate the second term campaigning.
(my bolding)
Term limits have always been a weapon against dictatorships, not for them. Many dictators want the veneer of legitimacy so they lift term limits. History is full of them (Evo, Castro, Maduro, Chavez, Mobutu Sese Seko, Idi Amin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot…
All the supposed efficiencies of not transitioning are abundantly reversed by the entrenching of lobbies and corruption. Believe me, we Latin Americans know about it.
The term limit amendment really only codified what had been an American tradition anyway, one that was unnecessary to codify until we had our first President for Life in FDR. I think it makes a lot of sense.
I don’t really like the six year term idea because I think President should stand for reelection. One feature of our system I like is that one term Presidents are widely considered failures, and no President wants to be a failure, whereas even the worst two term Presidents seem to rest easy with their legacy. These are politiicans and the only thing that really gets through to them is electoral defeat. One six year term would allow all these fools to think they were pretty good Presidents, because the electorate never told them otherwise.