Thoughts on 22d Amend
🗣️ DISCUSSION 💬
The 22d Amendment (Presidential Term Limits) says that "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..."
I have so many thoughts on this that I can't limit them to this forum, but I see a path!
What are your thoughts?
The first section deals with individuals regularly elected POTUS. The second section deals with those who have ascended to POTUS due to vacancy. The latter was assumed to apply to cases like Truman, who was VP for less than 100 days, basically served an entire term as an ascended POTUS, and then was [s]elected for his own term (election of 1948 was stolen, but I digress). The 22nd eliminated the opportunity for Truman to run a second time to have essentially a 3rd term, or as Republicans charged, a 6th FDR term, as Truman was seen as an extension of FDR (though one could argue that FDR's first term was the implementation of Hoover policies, so ipso facto, would that mean 7 years of Hoover?). The who push for the 22nd was for the Rs to help stop the Ds from ever again getting more than 2 terms. Of course, that means the keep themselves from getting more than two terms. Why should a GREAT President be kept from more than 2 terms if the people want to keep them President? I agree with Hamilton and TR. We HAVE term limits, called ELECTIONS. If the incumbent is that terrible, the people shouldn't be so stupid to keep them in office.
As far as Trump goes, IF he indeed was truly elected the winner in 2020, then he gets his second term and that's it. Doesn't matter whether or not he has been acting as POTUS or not over the last 2 years. Can't both argue that he gets to complete the 2 years of the remaining term, HIS rightful term, and then is eligible for 2024.
Now, if by some miracle SCOTUS was to rule, as they should, that Trump actually won in 2020, and should be the rightful POTUS, then he is entitled to a full 4 year term. I'd argue that means that Trump would get 4 years from the time he would actually be inaugurated for his 2nd term, regardless of if that's 2022 or 2023, or even 2024. Any such change would be unprecedented, so it's really anyone's guess how such a hypothetical would play out.
Unfortunately, at this stage in the game, I don'ts see Trump being back before 2024, assuming he wins that election. It's been 2 years, and he had ample opportunity to both prevent the steal and undo the steal, and yet, nothing. To risk the debate over getting the 2 remaining, plus 2024, would be very dangerous, it could limit him to just the remaining 2 years and no 2024, which means president for only 6 years total, not 8.
I could be wrong, but smart money is that he's going to spent the next two years campaigning, suckering millions of people to finance that campaigning, and undermine the Resident's "administration." And then we'll get to 2024, and they will steal it again...