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If Trump Gets a 3rd Term, Democracy Will Have Already Ended

Explore the alarming consequences of a hypothetical third Trump term. Discover why experts argue it would signal the end of American democracy and its core principles.

Have Already Ended

For many Americans, the big political question is how much of this country as we have known it will be left when Donald Trump leaves the White House in 2029. In an apparent effort to troll Trump’s detractors, MAGA folk keep calling for a third Trump term. And the president himself keeps bringing it up. It has become something of a game for journalists to force Trump to come to grips with the constitutional barriers to a third term (most notably the 22d Amendment, which flatly rules it out). And when NBC News confronted him with that simple fact on Sunday, he rather mysteriously said “there are methods” whereby he could stay in office beyond the 2028 election.

To make it worse, Trump said of exploring a third term, “I’m not joking” — yet he would not further clarify his intentions. This could be Trumpian bluster, but then again, this is a president who appears to be deadly serious about almost-equally preposterous ideas like the military conquest of Greenland.

To be clear, there is no constitutional path to a Trump third term. The 22nd Amendment, enacted by a Republican Congress infuriated by Franklin Roosevelt’s four consecutive presidential-election victories, is categorical: No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice. This amendment wasn’t just a momentary act of partisan spite, either: It essentially codified a tradition set by George Washington, which lasted until the combined emergencies of the Great Depression, then an impending World War II gave FDR an opening to violate that tradition, not without great controversy. Presidents who even considered a third-term bid prior to Roosevelt (notably Ulysses Grant in 1880 and Woodrow Wilson in 1920) were met with considerable public hostility and accusations of dictatorial intentions.

There is no exception for presidents serving nonconsecutive terms, as Steve Bannon has fatuously suggested. The dodge most often discussed by Trump fans is a scheme whereby the incumbent would run for vice-president in 2028 with, say, J.D. Vance at the top of the ticket, who would quickly resign and let The Boss stay right there in the Oval Office. But this is very clearly banned by the 12th Amendment, which holds that No person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president shall be eligible to that of vice-president of the United States. Sure, you can contrive some wild scenario where Trump would be elected House Speaker, then both the duly elected president and vice-president would resign to return him to power. But obviously, that would require a cult of personality beyond any precedent in America, or much of anywhere else other than clearly authoritarian regimes like Stalin’s USSR, Mao’s China, or Perón’s Argentina. ALSO READ

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