Trump forever: It could happen after second term ends

Gun Rights

Now that he’s back in the White House for his second non-consecutive four-year span, President Trump is starting his final term.  

But maybe not. 

There is no assurance he will only serve this single additional term. While seemingly outlandish, the prospect deserves to be taken seriously.

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One can readily visualize that the 45th/47th president would try to stay in power after the current term expires. Indeed, at the convention of the National Rifle Association (NRA) this past spring, he remarked he might need two more terms to achieve his objectives, beginning to set the tone for the murmuring from his acolytes that is likely to expand. 

He seemed to double-down on that threat at another Christian organization pre-election rally in Florida, telling the enthusiastic audience members that if he’s elected they “won’t have to vote anymore,” chillingly implying there may not be any future elections if he and his Project 2025 warriors get back into power, which they have achieved. 

Since the election, others have taken up the cause. Steve Bannon, for instance, a Pied Piper podcaster of the MAGA movement, has already issued a call from his pulpit to his  followers to support a Trump third term.  

Dictators  don’t go away lightly. Italy’s Benito Mussolini and Germany’s Adolph Hitler, two templates for authoritarianism, did not voluntarily step aside; it took a global war, initiated by them, to bring them down.

Current  examples abound: Hungary’s Viktor Orban, a welcomed guest at Mar-a-Lago  twice last year, is in his third term and Vladimir Putin is in his fifth, not to mention the Kim Jong Un family business in North Korea and various Middle Eastern potentates, among others.

Overcoming obstacles

But what about the 22nd Amendment, which expressly, in two separate portions, bars an individual  from being “elected” as president  for more than two terms? It’s a provision that parallels many state Constitutional and statutory term limitations of various types in 37 states, although not here in Minnesota, limiting governors from extending their tenures  indefinitely. 

But that obstacle might be overcome in several ways.  

The Federal restriction could be repealed by a new amendment, the 28th, (or 29th  if the disputed Equal Rights Amendment counts) although it seems unlikely that the requisite two-thirds of votes could be mustered in each chamber of Congress and then ratified by the necessary 3/4ths, 38, state legislatures. 

Plan B would involve the president and his minions interpreting that bar as applicable only to consecutive terms, not split terms like Grover Cleveland and Trump, despite the explicit wording  of the amendment. 

The argument could be based on the historic context of the provision, which was ratified in 1951 in response to the four consecutive terms that Franklin Roosevelt was elected to, although he died a few months into his final one. 

If the matter comes before the Supreme Court, the compliant conservative core could side with that contention. 

But even without that strained argument, the terminology is not foolproof. While it  expressly, in two clauses, bars a person from being “elected” more than twice, it does not proscribe one from ascending to the presidency from the vice president position if the top spot is vacant. 

A plan could be devised four years from now to have a GOP successor for presidency head a ticket with the outgoing President Trump as vice president, and if they win, the placeholder president can step aside and the newly-elected president return to the Oval Office without transgressing the “elected” more-than-twice  proscription.  

The Supreme Court professes to decide cases based on “textualism,” the explicit wording  of a measure, except when it’s convenient for the ultra-conservative majority to disregard that principle. Applying that standard could create a path for this device. 

But there’s a problem there, too, since the blurry language of the 12th Amendment seems to suggest that a vice president must be eligible to be president. However, a Trump-friendly Supreme Court, like the current conservative super-majority, could reconcile the two provisions in a way favorable to that scenario of Trump as vice president. 

Another alternative

If that won’t work, there’s yet another alternative: have a compliant JD Vance as vice president do what Mike Pence declined despite chants from the insurrection mob to “hang” him on Jan, 6, 2021 – refuse to certify the election of someone else, turning the matter over to a pro-Trump House of Representatives to allow him to hang around for four more years because the House votes by states as a unit, and Republican-majority state delegations predominate in that chamber. 

If none of these works, as an outgoing second-termer, Trump could declare martial law, as some like the embattled Minnesota pillow-maker Mike Lindell urged him to do in early 2021, call out the troops, and keep himself in power via a coup. 

Doing dynasty

Then, there’s always the prospect of doing a dynastic arrangement, setting up his family members to stay put in the White House, like sons Donald Trump Jr. or Eric Trump or his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who already has a leg up as second-in-charge at the Republican National Committee. There’s even the youngest son Barron Trump, who’ll be eligible when he reaches age 35 in 2044. 

Marshall H. Tanick
Marshall H. Tanick

Sounds far-fetched? Not any more so than a multiple bankrupt television reality performer with no political experience could overcome some 16 party opponents and then defeat a seasoned, well-financed adversary, as he did in 2016. Or, no less imaginable than a defeated and disgraced officeholder slinking out of the nation’s capital, facing four felony cases, and managing to become president again. 

In any event, like the fictional “Man Who Came to Dinner,” don’t expect the former and current president to leave gracefully.

Marshall H. Tanick is a Twin Cities Constitutional law attorney.

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