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Comment by zamalek | Hacker News Reader

If Trump wins the next election, take that as the signal of the point of no return. It happened to Rome, it can happen to America.

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We are already long past the point of no return. He is the manifestation of a popular will. Even if he vanished tomorrow, those voters will remain.

They will not be daunted by an electoral setback. They control the Supreme Court, and will for decades. They control a majority of state legislatures -- which control how voting and districting work.

We've been past the point of no return since 2016. If you still had hope then, it should have died the same day Ruth Bader Ginsburg did. At this point it's all just telling ourselves fairy stories. It gets monotonically worse from here, and there is no longer anything we can do about it.

They were barely more than half of the voters, and did not represent a single unified ideology. This doesn't mean they won't vote against their own interests again.

Less than half the voters (49.8% of popular vote), due to third-party candidates.

> It gets monotonically worse from here, and there is no longer anything we can do about it.

For decades now, government policy has had approximately nothing to do with the will of the public. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...)

This situation is now being corrected. Anyone who sees this as a catastrophe, as getting "monotonically worse", is no fan of a republican form of government

This republican form of government was explicitly created to insulate law and justice from the direct will of the public.

So whose preferences should policy reflect? NGO presidents? Tech company employees in gatekeeper positions? Editorial column writers? Why these people and not the public? What gives them the right to rule?

Are you asking why america has a republican form of government designed to minimize the power of the majority of the population?

Well, partly because travel and communications were extremely slow when the constitution was written, but mostly because the rich land owners (and white males) were the ones writing it.

Ideally not thin-skinned demagogic grifter kleptocrats with no respect for the Constitution or rule of law.

Seems like a low bar to hurdle, yet here we are.

It can also fail outright if voters and Congress pick up the scent of Emperor at midterms. History does not always repeat. If it did, we would not have had democracy to begin with.

I think in this case it will require the non-voters picking up the scent of a monarch. This is why I believe that point is yet to come (though I do believe that the belief that we are passed it is also very rational, only history will know).

He can't run again.

You say that now. Every system designed to protect the constitution has been captured by him.

America has 4 years to set things right, it had better make it count.

Supreme Court Judges have careers that outlive Presidents.

I think people consistently misinterpret the overturning of Roe (a calculated, focused effort that took decades and overturned specific judicial precedent that basically had created a right-to-privacy from whole cloth) with "Trump has SCOTUS in his pocket." He doesn't. The GOP got the two things they wanted from tilting the SCOTUS in their direction; there's no reason to believe this SCOTUS is about to start looking at the bare-face text of the Twenty Second Amendment and decide there aren't any words there.

The incentives just aren't there. Especially because it's pretty obvious that if they do ignore that text, it becomes pitchfork time and their necks are no less vulnerable than the President's.

(ETA: And that's ignoring that individual states are not obligated to put him on the ballot if he's inelligible to run for a third term, and by-and-large, Americans do not vote for names not on the ballot because they don't know their own civil rights).

For me, it was the assertion of presidential immunity that lost my trust.

That's complicated, but not actually unexpected. The Constitution lays out the process and authority to check the President's power, and that process flows from Congress. SCOTUS essentially said "If Congress didn't even find a violation that moved them to invoke their maximum penalty of removal-from-office, why on Earth does anyone think we would impose the law to punish the President's official actions where Congress did not?" SCOTUS can restrain Presidential action (by saying, essentially, "that order is illegal" so nobody need comply) but they've never claimed to have the authority to punish the person in the office for doing the job as best he can. Granted, this was new territory because no previous administration had opened the question of such a sanction... But it's not surprising that SCOTUS responded "Jail the President for doing Presidential stuff? Hold on, let me check the Constitution... Nope, don't see it."

I get what you're arguing but isn't "Jail the President for doing Presidential stuff" a bit charitable? "Nope, don't see it" isn't so simple, I think a lot of people would argue that this follows from the rule of law set down in the constitution in the form of things like the supremacy clause and implied by our entire legal/political structure.

> isn't "Jail the President for doing Presidential stuff" a bit charitable?

One of our Presidents, against the will of Congress and in an era where the right to levy war on the part of Congress was far more closely tied to troop deployment (because we weren't yet in the era of Pax Americana with permanent overseas bases on every continent, much less the post-9/11 era of massive power delegation to the Executive), moved our Naval assets away from the Atlantic coast toward Europe and basically tried to hide it from Congress. It would have been extremely impeachable... But then we ended up in a World War soon after. A war we, conveniently, already had our Atlantic assets positioned to fight, over the previous desires of an isolationist American representative legislature.

That President never came under question of whether he should be jailed for putting Americans in harm's way when we were not involved in the European conflict (yet), and Congress had no intention of involving the country (yet). The things Trump did in office were far less risky to life and limb. I'm not implying they were correct or just things; I'm saying that when we talk about whether the other branches should be able to jail the President for malfeasance in-office, this is the realm of decisions and standards we're talking about.

He was ineligible this time based on the 14th amendment, but SCOTUS told Colorado they couldn't keep him off the ballot.

Unfortunately, he was never convicted of treason or any other crime that would involve the 14th Amendment.

I think we can understand why SCOTUS would ban Colorado from making that decision themselves, for much the same reason it bans Mississippi from having its own interpretation of the parts of the 14th Amendment about due process or citizenship.

In contrast, the 22nd Amendment is plain-letter law, so obvious that it brooks no interpretation.

I disagree it's as obvious as you think. He could run for VP and then act as de-facto President. It says that "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice" - in that case, he would have been _elected_ Vice President, not President.

And as as far as the 12th Amendment goes, "But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."

The 22nd amendment doesn't explicitly say he cannot serve as President, it just says "no person shall be _elected_ to the office of President".

Yes, the spirit of the constitution clearly prevents a 3rd term, but it could be possible to employ a very literal interpretation that allows the above.

This is assuming one needs to campaign in an election in order to continue their command of the executive branch and the military. I'm pretty sure the president's claim that he can serve a 3rd term means he'll serve for however long he determines, as an official act. Any court that dares issue an order to the contrary will have as little power to enforce their order as they are demonstrating now.

He could certainly kick off a Constitutional crisis by just ignoring the law, on that we agree. But that's always a risk. He could make a kill list of Congress members to assassinate starting alphabetically and it would be the same category of problem.

And the same people would defend it as not a constitutional crisis for whatever reason Fox News ran with.

Keep watching. He's got close to 4 years to figure out how to cross that Rubicon.

I think this is a foolish belief.

> The third presidential term of Franklin D. Roosevelt began on January 20, 1941, when he was once again inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States, and the fourth term of his presidency ended with his death on April 12, 1945

There's already precedent.

There's a whole Amendment about this.[1]

[1] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-22/

One inferred point of the article is that eroding the first amendment makes the rest less imposing to circumvent.

I think it's the other way around: giving an insurrectionist the most powerful office in the land, a violation of the 14th, is a recipe for wanton malfeasance in office. All the other violations were made possible by that first one.

True, famously, this administration is strictly bound by laws. Don't worry guys, we're safe.

They're already pitching the idea that the 22nd amendment only prevents someone who had two consecutive terms from running again. Looking at the language of the amendment, I have no idea how they can justify that. But stranger things have happened recently. :-/

The 22nd amendment was passed after that though.

FDR was seen as getting America out of the Great Depression and navigating America through WW2 successfully. Oh and alcohol became legal again so you could celebrate the roaring manufacturing economy and military victories with a beer. Trump is no FDR.

At some point every dictator was more popular with a crowd, sometimes even the moral crowd (Mugabe was aligned with liberating Zimbabwe from colonial rule). Who's to know what FDR would have become if biology hadn't saved him from extended exposure to power.

Trump merely happened to be far gone prior to stepping into office for the first time.

He said today he was serious about seeking a 3rd term and has multiple ways to do so... it would be absolutely foolish to pretend like 'norms' or the Supreme Court would constrain him.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-third-te...

I’m aware; I’m mostly saying the third term of FDR is not really “precedent” given the degree of popular support FDR enjoyed and the lack of the 22nd amendment at the time.

Trump seeking a third term will be out of the ordinary, and if he were to “win” the election and be recognized as the president, it would mean the end of the constitution. And that could happen.

Yeah that's fair - I don't think he'd be elected via a popular uprising of support. It's a very different scenario that has my worried.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/us/politics/trump-third-t... I agree but he doesn’t and neither do his voters.

Why not? Because a piece of paper says he’s not allowed to? Pieces of paper say a lot of things; sometimes they’re followed, sometimes not.

If that piece of paper isn't being followed, what are the rules of the game? And are you agreeing that force does settle it? Should it?

John Adams might agree with you though. He said the constitution was intended for a moral (and religious) people. Maybe Americans are simply out of virtue, and don't deserve the Constitution anymore?

Sounds pretty expensive.

To be clear, I hope it’s followed; I’m just not confident it will be.

Nayib Bukele is limited to one term by the Salvadoran constitution. He’s currently on his second. Turns out that if nobody stops you, you can just do whatever you want.

That "piece of paper" is the only thing saying that the president has any power. He wants us to not follow it? Fine, but he may not like the consequences, which are that he's no longer someone that we have to listen to or who has any actual power. He's just a real estate developer who thinks he's somebody important.

> That "piece of paper" is the only thing saying that the president has any power.

No it isn't. People have power because people with guns follow their orders, not because of what a piece of paper says.

And the people with guns swore an oath to the piece of paper, not to the man. If the piece of paper stops saying that he's the man...

Trump that he's serious about running for a third term and that there are methods to do it.

That was just earlier today. https://apnews.com/article/trump-third-term-constitution-22n...

We've had ten years of "Trump can't do X."

Yes but we've also had ten years of flooding the zone. I am inclined to believe this is the latter. He will get everything he needs from this term - primarily an escape from his Jan 6 and classified documents charges.

I think raising the third term was largely about pushing Signalgate off the front pages, and of course it worked.

He can be VP and then succeed by the president stepping down.

You cannot become VP if you are not _also_ eligible to be President.

The 12th Amendment disagrees:

> But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

But the 22nd amendment forbids being elected to the office more than twice. Eligibility to serve as president may not be the same as eligibility to be elected president.

This would have to be decided by the Supreme Court.

Elected as speaker of the house, then, as has already been said

On paper he can't do a lot of things but the amount of gutting and cutting that's happened in the last two(!) months makes one realize the laws aren't worth the paper they're written on without a proactive congress interested in keeping the executive in check. Suspending birthright citizenship as established in the 14th amendment is a big one that "he can't do." Challenges to E.O. 14160 are going through the courts right now so we'll see.

Legally speaking, I think an outright challenge to the 22nd amendment will be interesting. As a 20th century amendment the language is pretty clear. But once again we look to what would actually enforce it?

The scotus would need to strike down the 22nd amendment. Even with as horribly morally bankrupt of a scotus as we have now, I don’t think they’d sink to the low of striking down the 22nd.

I don't believe scotus can invalidate an amendment. The best they can do is interpret it in a way that allows a third term.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never struck down a constitutional amendment, that is true.

But in other common law countries, like India, whose legal system is very similar to the U.S., have had cases where the Supreme Court struck down a constitutional amendment.

For more on this, see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_structure_doctrine

With regard to the Indian case above: while I support the goal of judgement, as the goal of the judgment itself is good, the idea of a Supreme Court overriding a constitutional amendment is quite startling.

The supreme courts of several other countries, including Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Uganda have copied this doctrine.

Who knows when the U.S. Supreme Court will decide to copy this doctrine as well.

Not sure if it is the same in India but in the US there needs to be a supermajority of both houses and the amendment must be ratified by the states. Since the first ten amendments are considered more or less integral to the constitution, I have a hard time believing even this court would consider itself above amendments.

And even then, term limits would be a weird hill to die on, since it would open the door for future courts to strike down constitutional amendments.

He was already ineligible this election based on the 14th amendment, but SCOTUS bailed him out.

They could pull a Trump v. Anderson, and say neither courts nor states can't keep him off the ballot - only the people, the College, or the Congress can stop it.

I don’t have a ton of faith in scotus right now, but I think they understand their only power is in whether people consider them independent. Allowing a third term for Trump would be accepting that they’re basically in charge of parking tickets.

I don't think the current Scotus cares in any way about looking independent. Quite the opposite.

They legalized bribery in plain sight for everyone to see for fucks sake. They stated that the president is above the law. It's insane to me that anyone thinks our institutions will save us.

Thankfully elections in the US are not run by the federal government, they're run separately in every state. Trump may be able to illegally get on the ballot in some states with the support of friendly state governments but he definitely won't get on all of them.

Even seemingly-friendly southern states may have state governments that will take a dim view of Trump attempting to get on the ballot. Kentucky, for example, has a Democrat as governor who is very popular. Kentucky has also had its bourbon industry devastated by Trump's senseless trade war. I would be shocked if Trump managed to illegally get on the ballot in Kentucky in 2028.

SCOTUS didn't allow Colorado to remove him from the ballot this time, what makes you think they won't do the same next time?

This time they have the 22nd amendment on their side. The law is crystal clear. He would need SCOTUS to ignore the constitution in his favour.

Many people think that the conservative majority on the court would automatically side with him and rubber-stamp his candidacy. I highly doubt that. He has already been publicly repudiated by Roberts (chief justice nominated by GW Bush) for his attacks on federal courts [1]. I am confident Roberts would not support any attempt by Trump to ignore the 22nd amendment.

[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/18/john-roberts-donald...

It's a good thing none of the political parties have recently been floating detailed plans to pack the supreme Court with extra justices. < /s >

If they added 10 young MAGA judges to the supreme Court this year, that would be the biggest legacy of the administration. All the XO can just be undone on day one, assuming we have another pro-democracy president.

Putin was also term limited around 2012 iirc?

This is what these people do.

He's stated he is contemplating getting Vance to run, then for Vance to step down in favor of Trump.

> Trump, 78, said in the interview that he was serious about seeking a third term in office.

> "A lot of people want me to do it," Trump said, according to NBC News. "But we have – my thinking is, we have a long way to go. I'm focused on the current."

> When asked about specific plans for seeking a third term, Trump confirmed one method — Vice President JD Vance wins the White House in a future election and then hands over the presidency. Trump said there were other plans, but he refused to say what they wer

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/30/g-s1-57231/trump-third-term

That plan fails the requirement that to run for Vice president you have to be eligible for president. But sure, Trump trying to pull what Putin did with Medvedev in the 2000s seems about right for a wannabe dictator.

> He's stated he is contemplating getting Vance to run, then for Vance to step down in favor of Trump

Technically illegal due to the Twelfth Amendment: “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States” [1].

Simpler: run two randos, have the House choose Trump as Speaker [2], have the randos resign [3].

[1] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-12/

[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-speaker-non-member-of-con...

[3] https://www.usa.gov/presidential-succession

I presume you are familiar with the standard counter argument that the Constitution says "elected" rather than "serve"?

Here's a Constitutional law professor arguing 25 years ago that Bill Clinton was constitutionally eligible to run again as VP: https://web.archive.org/web/20051001004410/http://archives.c...

It's easy to claim that Trump running as VP would violate the spirit of the 12th amendment, but I think there is genuine doubt as to how the Supreme Court might rule.

Separately, could you contact me by the email in my profile? I've got a (mostly unrelated) question I've been meaning to ask you. No hurry.

Don't know why you're getting downvoted, he is openly stating he plans to try to violate the 22nd amendment of the Constitution[1].

If you think that can't happen, think about this: the Constitution already prohibited him from running as an insurrectionist. Multiple states found that he committed insurrection and the US Supreme Court forced him on their ballots anyway. The reason: they assert that the amendment isn't self-enforcing, and congress must proactively write a law in order to create enforcement measures for the 14th amendment's prohibition on insurrectionists. They didn't, so he was allowed to run and take office.

That same logical jiu-jitsu the GOP used to successfully violate the 14th amendment could just as easily be used on the 22nd.

[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-third-term-president-con...

Don't discuss comment voting :) [1]. I'm an adult and can handle it, corrective votes will be issued by others if its warranted.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We’re a long way from that:

1. He’ll have to change some rules to run again. There will be a lot of resistance.

2. Midterm elections (November of 2026) could take away majorities in the house and the senate, and hopefully bring impeachment back into the picture.

3. There are special elections next Tuesday - 2 house seats in Florida and a Supreme Court justice in Wisconsin. It’s encouraging that Republicans are worried about these, the apartheid billionaire is spraying money all over Wisconsin.

Yes it’s dark and depressing, but things can be changed long before the next Presidential election.

> If Trump wins the next election[..] It happened to Rome

In Rome, Cezar didn't become the dictator for life, he got stabbed to death. What happened is that his successor, Octavian, took control of real power while pretending that the republic was fine.

In reality Republic died before Cezar, while Octavian played Weekend at Bernie's.

He's already 78.

Edit: Born June 14, 1946 - you do the math.

Trump the person or Trump the family or even Trump the idea.

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