Short of congress changing the law or a successful coup, neither of which are necessarily off the table, yes these next four years will be Trump's last in office. Who knows what either party will have to offer in 2028.
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The only exception I know to 2 terms and 8 years are getting moved from vice president to president and I think that also has a limit. The problem is the US president is now above the law and no one other than congress can stop him, and his sycophants own congress.
Correct, this is the last time he can be elected.
“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.” https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xxii
Unless you change the rules with the help of the supreme court of which you elected several judges. I mean, Xi and Putin did it, why can't Trump?
I hope accurate assinations make a come back if that happens.
Accurate Assassinations is a nice band name.
You can only be elected as president twice. You can probably hack the system by getting multiple other presidents to select you as vice president, then resign. If you serve more than 2 years of the term they were elected to, that reduces the number of times you can be elected as president to one.
The 22nd amendment doesn't say that someone that serves 3.99 years of another president's term multiple times can't still be elected, and it doesn't say that someone not qualified to be elected as president can't be elected as vice president, but the 12th amendment might. Either of those could be an interesting legal fight.
That's against the rules though. I think it's the 13th amendment that says a president who was elected twice can't be selected as VP.
Legally he's only got 2 terms. However as my government teacher explained, the constitution says what the Supreme Court says it says. So who knows what they'll say about it.
He didn’t win the popular vote first time so they’ll argue he wasn’t “elected” then.
No
They'd have to do some "creative interpretation" of the law
They've already said that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment doesn't exist.
Very creative
It's 2 total terms. There's no "resetting the clock" in that rule. Any attempt to remain in power for a third term would be blatantly unconstitutional.
That said, there's a real concern that he's likely to try anyway, and a non-zero chance that he'd succeed if he manages to fill enough of the government and military with people more loyal to him than to the constitution.
It's worth mentioning that this has only been the case since the 1950's. FDR was elected four times and died during his final term, after which term limits were added to the constitution in response.
It's also worth adding, though, that the convention of only running for at most two terms had existed pretty much since the establishment of the republic (until FDR broke it), when Washington and Jefferson each chose not to run for third terms
Yup, Washington was wildly popular at the time. He easily could have stayed in office indefinitely, as long as nothing horrible happened. But his reasoning was that they had just rebelled against a monarchy, and he didn’t intend to start another one.
He gets two terms, whether they're split up or not. This is his last term by law.
He's probably just going to stay anyway, because Republicans have managed to infect government with the kinds of losers who would back something like that.
It means this is his last term, barring any changes to the law or extralegal shenanigans, period.
Two terms, regardless if consecutive or not.
Technically the limit is on if a person can be elected to the office. It might be possible for a person that have been elected president 2 times to the run for vice president and have a loyalist run as president, then have the loyalist resign after getting sworn in and making the VP president. But a person that isnt eligible for president should not be eligible for vice president either. But we dont know if this means a person who isnt eligible to be elected president can become vice president, since the person can still serve as president, just not elected to it. We don't know since this has never been court tested.
Also if a person serve less than 2 years, they can still run for 2 terms. So even without the "president resign and VP becomes president" shenanigan, a person can technically serve for 10 years minus 1 day.
Also, the speaker of the house does not have to be a member of the house. So technically a person who has been elected 2 terms can be chosen as speaker of the house, then have the president and vice president resign and the person now become acting president for the rest of the term. I'm pretty sure this maneuver doesnt need to go through courts since you can become speaker of the house even if you are inelligible to become president or vice president, so it wouldn't prevent the person from being speaker, and the text on the 22nd amendment only prevents a person form being elected more than twice, no mention of any limit on if a person can serve or act as president.
Anyways, thanks for coming to my ted talk on political shenanigans.
The clock is not reset like Russia.
...yet
Legally he can't. But legally that fucker should have been in jail long ago, so who knows.
Can't someone run for President, name Trump his vice, then resign?
If they followed the law as written it would go to the next person in order of succession, the congressional house speaker, because he would be ineligible to hold the office after the second term.
Actually, no. The 22 amendment says that a person can't be "elected" as President while the 25 amendment says that the Vice President shall become President in case of resignation. No contradiction here. So while Trump can't be elected anymore he can still become President for unlimited terms.
Being President is an official act of the office of President, the President isn't accountable for crimes as part of official acts, therefore breaking the law on Presidential term limits by staying President is legal.
Right, there's also a constitutional amendment saying insurrectionists can't stand for office
Too bad people who wrote that didn't specify what it meant.
Like does it mean:
A. If popular opinion deems a person commited an act of insurrection, they are inelligible.
B. Congress passed a resolution that deems a person have committed an act of insurrection
C. The Supreme Court has ruled that a person have committed insurrection
D. The person gets charged with committing an act of insurrection.
E. The person gets convicted with committing an act of insurrection.
Because
A is just dumb,
B would allow a republican controlled congress declare a democratic candidate inelligible. Basically its just partisan shenanigans.
C also allows partisan shenanigans
D is presuming someone guilty, bad idea.
E trump has only been convicted of state charges of fraud, not anything involving insurrection.
So yea they should've worded it better on what it means.
It should be E and the DOJ should have made sure that this was handled in a court of law in the first 100 days. Or maybe even a specialised tribunal for insurrection.
How did they handle the insurrectionists post civil war?
I really wish Biden had gone after him 10% as hard as he went after Sanders.
Biden is the chief executive I don't know why the courts had any say in executing a law that is already on the books. A strong president would have done his job executing the law and making the SC enforce their over reaching decision themselves.
Does it even matter? trump can get convicted of insurrection but the supreme court can just decide that he hasnt committed an act of insurrection based on their interpretation.
Whos gonna enforce their decision? Every cop and every corrections officer in the country are under the executive branch and answer to the president, not the judicial or legislative branches. What Biden tells them goes, no ifs ands or buts.
States run elections. Even if Biden were do try to prevent trump from appearing on the ballot, the states doesnt have to obey, especially if the supreme court's decision is contrary to the president's orders. And if trump appears on ballots, throwing him in prison wont do any good since if elected, as he did in our timeline, he becomes president on January 20th and can order the military to break him out of prison, whether state or federal prison.
And if the states somehow prevented trump from appearing on ballots, we'd be in a constitutional crisis and also a state vs federal government political crisis. Pro trump supporters will cite the supreme court decision as a rallying call to trump supporters around the country to protest, and use violence if necesary.
Well you might say, who cares what his supporters have to say. But the point is if the 14th amendment has a more clear procedures of how to invoke the part about insurrectionists being inelibible. trump could be barred from office and the prorests would've been minimal since the media would portay it as more legitimate. But unfortunately, the 14th amendment is so vague that the supreme court decision would paint a different picture in the media and in public opinion, making it seem like Biden is being tyrannical.
Well its a good thing Biden avoided seeming like a tyrant so that an actual tyrant could take power. That makes it make sense. Maybe I just don't have the money and comfort afforded to politicians and that's why I don't understand their decision making. Most of these ghould probably made a lot of money during the Trump years.
Biden is dont do things that seems unlawful. Because in his mind, he doesnt want to set an example for future presidents to reference and use that example to justify doing the same thing.
Also, how do you even prevent someone that wins both the popular vote and electoral college from becoming president? trump supporters would riot and even non-maga military officials would have to recognize trump as the next president.
The thing about democracy is that we all agree to let the person winning take office. Otherwise its just civil war to determine who is the leader.
You seem to have the impression that the US is a Defensive Democracy like in modern day Germany than can ban anti-democratic parties, but the US is not that. The US is a "whoever wins takes office" type of democracy, whether they are pro-democracy or a fascist. We would need to change the whole US culture about democracy if we want to become a Defensive Democracy.
So then what does the insurrection clause of the 14th amendment do? Just paper filler? If someone was under 35 it wouldn't matter how many votes they got for president, if someone wasn't a naturalized citizen it wouldn't matter how many votes they got. Im not asking for antidemocratic things to be banned, im asking for the law to be followed. Is the law always secondary to popularity? If I was popular enough could I simply go assault whoever I want? Because it sounds a lot like you're arguing written law shouldn't matter when you're popular enough because of the type of democracy the US is.
I'm gonna reiterate what I wrote in another comment:
Basically, the people who wrote the 14th amendment didn't specify how the ineligibility clause is invoked. Because it could be interpreted in a lot of different ways. Is it:
A. If popular opinion deems a person commited an act of insurrection, they are inelligible.
B. Congress passed a resolution that deems a person have committed an act of insurrection, then they become inelligible.
C. The Supreme Court has ruled that a person have committed insurrection, then they become inelligible
D. The person gets charged with committing an act of insurrection, and they become inelligible.
E. The person gets convicted with committing an act of insurrection, and they become inelligible.
Because the problems are:
A is just dumb,
B would allow a republican controlled congress declare a democratic candidate inelligible. Basically its just partisan shenanigans.
C also allows partisan shenanigans
D is presuming someone guilty, bad idea.
E trump has only been convicted of state charges of fraud, not anything involving insurrection. Not to mention, it'd require enough evidence to convince a jury to convict for something serious like insurrection.
So yea they should’ve been more specific. Because the vagueness gives the supreme court the legitimacy to interpret it the way they want to.