Summary
Despite the 22nd Amendment barring a third term (“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”), Trump continues to suggest he could run again, raising the idea at a Black History Month event and with Republican governors.
Legal experts say the Constitution is clear that he cannot run, though some supporters, including Rep. Andy Ogles and Steve Bannon, are pushing for a constitutional amendment or a 2028 campaign.
Meanwhile, Trump has expanded executive authority in his second term, drawing criticism for undermining congressional checks.
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One difference is that he, specifically, wasn’t convicted of insurrection by the time ballots were being printed up. That’s why the Supreme Court could plausibly say that there was no basis for states to remove him from the ballot.
The clause on term limits is clear. It’s automatic, and there’s no interesting basis to challenge that. The Supreme Court would have to massively overreach to make that work. Will they do that? Maybe, but it’s not the same situation.
The constitution is fine. The government has lost their will to enforce it, that’s the problem.
Yeah well, the Constitution says a lot of things. However, it’s fairly clear a large segment of the American population doesn’t care what the Constitution says as long as it’s their team in power.
Exactly, they’re going to say the courts are just against him, or something, and then kick off.
And I would say:
Yes, the courts are against him on that because it’s fucking clear that our founders never wanted a king or authoritarian in charge and two terms is more than enough and already set.
I have to say, it would be extremely funny if they changed the constitution and then Trump lost to Obama
No its so much more fucked than that. It’s literally god emperor language.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-third-term-constitutional-amendment-andy-ogles-2025020
The wording of Ogles’ amendment proposal suggests that previous consecutive two-term presidents, such as Barack Obama or George W. Bush, would not be allowed to run for a third term.
Funnily enough, the same thing happened with Putin in Russia
The Dems should call his bluff and propose a constitutional amendment allowing three terms, perhaps under the condition that sitting presidents must win an open primary to be eligible for a second or third nomination.
FDR had three terms, plus a few months of a fourth term.
IMHO, the bigger issue is not having three terms, but the fact that sitting presidents can get the nomination without winning a primary. This practice removes an important opportunity to replace them.
The parties aren’t part of the government and can make their own rules on how they choose a candidate. All that’s required to run for president is getting enough signatures and filing the right paperwork. Being a party’s chosen candidate makes that a lot easier, but anyone can do it.
Since we are talking constitutional amendments, anything can be added as a requirement.
The way things currently work are not a restriction.
I honestly think we should have fewer roadblocks to running for national office, not more. Introduce an amendment that candidates have to be primaried and now only members of a party can run for president, rather than anyone who gets enough support. That doesn’t seem like a step forward to me.
In what world could someone who is already elected president not arrange some kind of democratic primary for their second and third terms?
You could also abolish the whole primary process and go for a French two-stage election.
Anyway, sky’s the limit for finding a new system.
The Republican Third Term Project is pushing this hard. They’re at CPAC drumming up support. I think the language is only specific to Trump though, so no other past president would be able to run again. It’s something like a president that has not served 2 consecutive terms.
Also, Trump doesn’t care about the constitution and neither do just about every GOP in office. They may say publicly that he can’t do it or whatever, but if it comes down to it, they would vote for it.
To be fair he wasn’t supposed to run for a second term as a convicted felon, but he managed that.
I’d like to say I’d be surprised if he could win another election as his popularity plummets, but the US voters have proven themselves to be stupid and/or lazy.
Being a convicted felon does not disqualify you from running for president, or from being elected to the office.
Fomenting insurrection does, but that got waved away “because reasons”.
Because Merrick Garland is a bitch. Also more stuff.
Nah, Colorado was handling it appropriately, then SCOTUS stepped in and told a state that they’re not allowed to administer elections in their state.
Why not both?
Because given how shameless SCOTUS has been, not sure there’s even an alternative reality where they still don’t worm themselves around Garland too, regardless of what he did or how fast.
Because Biden appointed a bitch instead of someone who would actually do their goddamn job.
As convicted felon you can’t run for position of burger flipper at McDonalds, but you can become a president…
I mean the reason why someone shouldn’t be barred for office based on a conviction is obvious
And if you, and potentially multiple family members, don’t pass a background check… you still qualify!
I mean, it should be fine to stop someone from running a country if they are a felon, but that requires sane, rational adults.
No. It should never be fine. People make mistakes. People fix those mistakes. But more importantly, you never want it possible for a political arrest to disbar a person from office.
Problem is he wasn’t just arrested. Convicted by a jury, incited an insurrection on live TV, retained classified documents and hid them from the FBI, and attempted a coup with the fake electors scheme…it’s a massive leap beyond just being “arrested”.
He’s literally guilty of blatant treason. That should obviously be disqualifying. Brazil, which might be considered a “third world country” by many Americans, handled their similar situation infinitely better.
Oh yeah, he 100% should be disqualified for insurrection. However, a felony is not treason.
Eugene V Debs is the best example for why that’s not the case.
I wouldn’t be surprised. He promised an end of elections and voting. This is what his voters wanted.
Take the good with the bad, if we have to re-do the voting system I say we move towards a more popular-voting system and get rid of the electoral collage, it’s time to shake up the gerrymandering of districts in favor of GOP Senators/Congress.
Time for an overhaul!
I think he’s aiming more to become an emperor. That said, I like the positive outlook! If he fucking ruins everything, there’s always room for the Americans to build something better in the mess he leaves.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. The abject destruction of all aspects of law and government being carried out by Trump/Musk right now is, objectively, a bad thing that’s going to hurt a lot of people very badly. But once their system inevitably completely collapses, I think a lot of Americans are going to be open to new ideas of governance.
Previously, we could all see problems in our systems but the path to actually getting them solved involved generations of focused political maneuvering to actually stand a chance of putting them in place. Take federal adoption of ranked choice voting as an example. Many people would say they were in favor of that but we all knew it had a snowball’s chance in hell of ever actually happening because of how our system of governance was set up. I fully expected we’d just coast along with FPTP voting until we’re all dead from climate catastrophe.
But now, we’re actually looking at a potential full scale, whole hog destruction of the foundations of American government. Whoever inherits it afterward - and someone will, this reign won’t last forever, it’s incapable of sustaining itself even if we all just left them alone - has the potential for nearly a ground-up rewrite of some fundamental assumptions of American government. We’re talking about changing the baseline voting systems, changing eligibility for office for many roles, even fundamentally changing the way our representation is appointed (such as by population size instead of by land, for instance - one rep for every, say, 500,000 citizens, not two reps per state regardless of population) and so on.
Rising from our own ashes may just end up being one of the best things to ever happen to America, in a historical context. Inevitably, no matter how this farce ends up resolving, we will have an opportunity for this afterward. Trump, in his bumbling fury, has swept away decades worth of red tape and inertia that we otherwise would have had to struggle through to make this happen, and in addition has galvanized a lot of latent anger with the system within the citizens. We will have a real chance to turn that into something constructive after all this finishes in whatever way it does.
That’s my light at the end of the tunnel for all this, and in a weird way, I guess I have Trump to thank for this. His signature style of completely ignoring norms and regulations means that he can blast through a ton of bullshit while being completely immune to the feedback, and we can just build it all up again from scratch later in a term or two instead of taking six decades to effect gradual change.
Previously I would have called this accelerationism and maybe condemned it, but we’re in the shit now, so may as well get it over with I guess. He’s already throwing all his toys out of the crib no matter what I say about it so I’m no longer ashamed about cheering for it. America has had a deep sickness in its government for a very long time and maybe now we can excise it. We’re losing a lot of healthy tissue alongside it, and that’s bad, but it’s not likely to kill us altogether. We’ll grow back stronger.
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Emperor Trump, a man who cannot be trusted to run a charity in the state of New York….
I hate to ‘akshualllyyy’, but actually there’s nothing in US law or the constitution that precludes a convicted felon from running for or holding office.
There was a lot of legal talk leading up to the last election about that, along with plenty of surprise that was the case. It turns out it was another of those gentlemen’s agreements that was never codified because up until very recently, most people just assumed voters were smart enough not to elect someone like that, so codifying it wasn’t worth anyone’s time.
If we ever wrest control back from these ghouls, there are a shit-ton of things that need codifying.
e: a few words
If we ever wrest control back from these ghouls, there are a shit-ton of things that need codifying.
While this is absolutely true, it is not a good idea to make felony conviction a disqualification from holding office. Look at who’s controlling DoJ right now, and there are plenty of states that will follow that lead. Making it so that a felony conviction disqualifies a person from holding office is just a roadmap for corruption to follow in order to maintain control.
That, and we have that stupid Electoral College. Oh, and lots and lots of fuckery from the Republican apparatchiks when it comes to running our elections.
Who’s gonna stop him from running for or taking office for a third time? The Democrats? Are they gonna write a strongly worded letter? The Supreme Court? Do they have anyone with guns who will listen to them?
He’ll be SLaMmeD in that strongly worded letter, they’ll pat themselves on the back for a job well done, then run another candidate without a primary.
Criminals aren’t allowed to run for president either. Here we are.
Of course criminals are allowed to run for president
I’d vote for Debs
According to the Supreme Court of the United States of America, Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee are both eligible for the office of the United States of America (if they were still alive at least).
wrong, it’s only individual states that prohibit felons from voting or running for office.
It says elected. He has no intention of having another election.
Of course he’ll run and of course he’ll win and og course he’ll just ignore the laws about it and of course nobody is going to stop him
I can’t see him still being alive by then. He’s going to have a stroke or coronary before then.
Or some other mysterious 3rd option
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Barred? By whom? Really, when will the states wake up and figure out there is no “adult” in the wings that will enforce norms.
Any time Trump jokes, it’s the camel’s nose under the tent.
I’ve never heard that phrase before that’s an excellent phrase.
Can you enlighten me? I don’t understand the phrase.
I also had no idea. This is what I found.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel’s_nose
The camel’s nose is a metaphor for a situation where the permitting of a small, seemingly innocuous act will open the door for larger, clearly undesirable actions.
Camels, much like dogs, cats, and other domesticated animals, are constantly pushing their boundaries. The phrase “a camel’s nose under the tent” is indicative of a camel that is attempting to find a way inside the tent so that they may eat the, most likely, food that has captured their attention with its scent.
This would be applicable to the Drumpf administration because they are, much like the camel, using a method of “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks,” as well as a method of overwhelming the media with birdshot. Namely, if you’re creating 50 stories a day, and doing 50 things a day, then the media and the government can’t keep up.
Again similar to our camel that has enough strength to tip the tent over, and create a royal mess, in its attempt to get in.
Edit: First time I have heard the phrase as well,.but that is the meaning I would take from context.
I looked it up when I saw it, it seems like it comes from a fable with a similar moral to “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”
A camel sticks his nose under the edge of a tent for warmth, it’s owner (or a stranger w/e) allows it to out of kindness. Then the camel slowly worms it’s entire body in the tent and refuses to budge.
It’s a slippery slope parable.
In a sane society Trump should be in prison.
He’s gonna run anyways. Mark my words. He can’t leave office or he’s fucked. The constitution is nothing more than toilet paper at this point, if no one is going to stand up for it.
It is unlikely that the constitution will be amended. Democrats still (and will always) hold roughly 50% of seats in the Congress. So any proposal to amendment will not pass. However, there is a possibility of coup if Trump does not want to step down.
My guy, 2 years from now, there will be a redder wave from a kangaroo election, and they will amend the Constitution and end whatever is left of democracy. CISA is gutted, and will be replaced with lackeys that will confirm the fake election. We’re cooked.
They just illegally fired, and replaced the joint chiefs. What makes you think they aren’t going to arrest and replace all the democratic representatives and senators?
We’re already past The Reichstag Fire
He will be trying to make The Fediverse illegal in the US within the next 6 months.
I could be wrong, but aren’t joint chiefs appointed by the president nonetheless?
You’re not wrong, there was nothing illegal about firing the joint chiefs.
It was stupid, but not illegal. Calling everything Trump does illegal, only serves to dilute the impact when he does actual illegal things.
Much like labeling everything ‘Nazi’, it only serves to cheapen the term.
Some Lemmy users even go so far as say there is equivalent of Reichstag fire event in US. Trump is only in office for one month and I didn’t see the Congress get burned, pinned the blame on an opposing group, and then made Trump demand for absolute power. Is Trump bad? Yes, but let’s not exaggerate. There are still checks and balance working as intended (many courts are still blocking many of Trump’s executive decisions after all). People need to relax and get a cool head first. Because decisions made on emotions will only blunder.
Unfortunately The Algorithm has learned that outrage is a form of engagement and so people who consume social media in place of news or education now are incentivized by social media’s reward systems to generate and view the most outrageous takes on any event.
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There was a little kernel of sanity behind that ruling, though. Absent a clear conviction for a crime that smells like insurrection, who gets to decide what insurrection means? I remember that there was a lot of talk of the “insurrection at the border” at the same time the ruling was being considered, as well as describing migrants as “military-age men”. I am positive that if the SC let Colorado take Trump off the ballot, Texas would have taken Biden off based on some bullshit theory that he was instigating a foreign invasion of migrants.
The language behind a third Presidential term is much, much clearer. The plain text of the amendment bars it, and if Trump decides to run again, several states will declare him ineligible on the spot. That will go to the SC, too. We’ll see what happens then.
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On November 2028, he’ll be older than Joe Biden is now.
But yeah, I can see him enter the 2028 GOP primaries, win the nomination, maybe beat Harris again, and serve as acting President while SCOTUS allows it.
you think they’ll repeal the 22nd amendment and we’d see Harris? Please it’d be Obama v Trump
Obama would easily win which is why all the bills have been worded to exclude him.
Do you have examples?
Yes. To allow a third term; if the president have not served two consecutive ones.
Haha fucking bullshit
I’m sure 38 states would go for that. 😁
