1y ago

Trump floats idea of three-term presidency at NRA convention

www.theguardian.com

Donald Trump flirted with the idea of being president for three terms – a clear violation of the US constitution – during a bombastic speech for the National Rifle Association in which he vowed to reverse gun safety measures green-lighted during the Biden administration.

“You know, FDR 16 years – almost 16 years – he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?” The ex-president and GOP presidential frontrunner said to the organization’s annual convention in Dallas, prompting some in the crowd to yell “three!” Politico reported.

Trump has floated a third term in past comments, even mentioning a prolonged presidency while campaigning in 2020. He has also tried distancing himself from this idea, telling Time magazine in April: “I wouldn’t be in favor of it at all. I intend to serve four years and do a great job.”

192 comments

And that's a big part of why, despite everything Biden is doing, I am 100% voting for him. Because if Biden wins, there will be a 2028 election where we can hopefully find someone better, and I'm not convinced that there will be under Trump.
Four years of Trump came really close to turning this country into a kakistocratic dictatorship. I really don't want to give him another chance.
- Despite what that Biden's doing exactly? I've heard about Israel weapon sales that are now being forced through by republicans as well. What else?
  
  "What else besides literally funding a genocide."
  Listen to yourself.
- People say we can find someone better next time and still vote for yell for everyone to vote for every Neoliberal like Biden when they show up on the ballot. The lesser evil route is what got us here now.
  
  The alternative, right now, is still potentially never having another election.
  
  "Where we are now" is nowhere near as bad as things could be. Nazi Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Franco's Spain all happened. Equally bad things could happen here, and in fact they have happened here. Remember how half this country's economy was based on chattel slavery and it led to a bloody civil war? And how there was a genocide of the indigenous population? Is that what you want? Because that's the kind of shit we're in for if we let the fascists win.
- Why on earth would you think democrats would allow for someone better in 2028? Biden's win will prove that they can continue propping up fascist extremists and you'll vote for fascist lite.
  You're not describing a strategy, you're describing a slow death.
  
  Even so, still better than a perpetual Trump dictatorship.
  If Trump wins, he will, without a doubt, try again to end American democracy. He did before. And whatever you think of our current situation, at least we have a fucking voice right now.
  
  Lol
  
  Can you type out anything without buzzwords?
  
  Voting for Biden is harm reduction. Not voting is just letting the GOP win and voting for Trump is a dumb idea.
  
  I don't even expect Democrats to "learn their lesson" by loosing an election, let alone reform democracy.
  
  Hard agree. I'm tired of people saying the only way to avoid fascism is the guy who
  sidestepped congress multiple times to fund/supply genocide,
  is pushing legislation to strip leftist orgs of nonprofit status,
  pushing legislation to make ANY criticism of Israel legally antisemitic so they can strip any college that allows protests of funding and accreditation
  coming from a party that at the slightest whiff of a challenge had it legally ruled that they do what they want, voters and donors be damned
  also a party equally complicit in moving the goalposts any time a third party comes close to meeting requirements for inclusion.
  America has always been fascist, ruled by a singular corporate party with two wings. The quiet part is out loud now and even prominent democrats and pundits can't help themselves but break out all the fascist stops on leftists.
  When democrats and liberals say "we have to stop fascism" they mean "we have to protect my status quo and the fascism that benefits me."
- there will be a 2028 election where we can hopefully find someone better
  I've literally had people utter this to me before every single presidential election that I've voted in and it's never come true. Neither party has any incentive to improve things when they're guaranteed to get votes because "the other guys are boogeymen!"
  
  So when Trump pulls another January 6, but succeeds this time and declares himself president for life, do you think that will make the situation better or worse?
  
  Trump literally already tried to overturn an election, for fuck's sake.
  
  Trump can't be both "different from everyone else" and "everyone's worries about the guy are unfounded, he's just another politician."
  While I know you didn't say he's the same, per se, you might as well by comparing alarms that Obama or Romney are going to be forever presidents to the guy literally "joking" about being a forever president that's taken possibly criminal steps to subvert the results of an election already.
  It's not just the fringe paranoid folks saying "this could be the end of democracy as we know it if Trump wins."
  
  Donald did do an insurrection on his way out in 2021. Oh, did you not vote in 2016? Maybe you are technically correct.
  
  There are generally better things happening under democratic rule than republican rule. I get that it can feel small to those of us who want more radical change but there is a difference.
  But I agree. Radical change is probably not happening from within the current system. Direct action and external pressure will be needed. But there is still a difference in how tolerant the two parties (and also between intra-party factions) will be of such a movement.
  
  If Biden wins, then in 2028 he won’t be able to run again, and Trump won’t physically be able to. I’m reasonably confident there will be two “new” choices.
  I’m very happy DeSantis seems to have crashed and burned, Christie had his last hurrah, and no one took Ramiswami seriously, but even Sanders’ age is a passing of the torch.
  So, will you support Harris, Newsom, or AOC to go up against Abbot?
The same guy who unilaterally banned bump stocks with an executive order being hosted by the NRA shows how much the NRA actually cares about the second amendment.
- Are you claiming the "take the guns first" guy isn't a strong 2A supporter? Say it isn't so!
  
  Amazing how little Republicans care when the person saying that has an R next to their name
- Bump stocks and all other focuses on rate of fire are more or less a sacrificial lamb. It provides a strong distinction between "Heh, stupid fucking loser thinking 'assault rifles' are actually a thing" and "semi-automatic versions of rifles specifically designed for and used by military forces"
  When the reality is that basically every military strong discourages the use of full auto by anyone whose job is not to carry a machine gun of some form. But, because that AR-15 you bought at Walmart doesn't have full auto, it isn't a military weapon.
  And because it is our god given right to carry an m249 everywhere we go, it is a horrible insult to the gun nuts of the world to lose their full auto capabilities so we should all feel warm and fuzzy and stop trying to stop kids from getting shot.
  
  That's because full auto rifles*, are typically seen as wasting limited ammunition. A modern military unit isn't likely to encounter a bunched together group of 30-50 soft targets where a full auto rifle would be most effective...unlike a mass shooter indiscriminately targeting a crowded concert.
  *Rifles, not machine guns. I'm well aware of the utility of squad machine gunners, talking guns, etc.
  
  Yeah bullshit, these assholes don't give a fuck about your rights or mine, they care about their power, money, and influence.
“If the Biden regime gets four more years, they are coming for your guns,” Trump railed.
Really pulling out the "greatest hits" with this piece here. He's got nothing else.
- ‘Member when Trump said he’d take guns without due process? Like he literally said that.
  https://youtu.be/yxgybgEKHHI?si=5WjokT9mD_4VQ46T
- That’s a GOP golden oldie. I’ve heard that same bs line since the early 90s at least.
  
  And it's a great line for the gun lobby. In a lot of ways, the NRA and gun manufacturers would prefer a Biden victory because gun sales spike when Democratic presidents get elected, as gun-nuts are certain every time it happens that this is the time, for real, that they're "coming for our guns." In other words, people panic buy rifles because they think a federal ban is coming. But the reality is that Dems will never push through sweeping anti-gun legislation because there are so many pro-2FA democrats out there that doing so would be ludicrously difficult and monumentally unpopular.
- "regime"
  He really used that word? Wow...
  
  I said the same thing. Heavy eye roll.
  
  This is partly just blowback from everyone agreeing to use different vocabulary for governments we like vs governments we don't. We never should have tolerated the blatant propaganda of the US having an "administration" while our adversaries have "regimes".
  There are lots of other examples of journalists using loaded vocabulary this way. Most of them escape me at the moment but I can think of a few, like "freedom fighters" vs "insurgents" or "terrorists", and "police action" or "peacekeeping force" vs "occupation" or "invasion".
3, then 4, then 5... Just like putin.
- "Let me tell you, folks, it’s so true. Just like Putin, right? It’s unbelievable. We start with 3, then we go to 4, and then 5. It's all about strength, and nobody knows strength like me. We're talking about a progression, a strategy. Just like Putin does, so smart. You have to move step by step, building power. That’s how you win, that’s how you get things done. Trust me, it works."
  Trump in one of his rallies (probably)
  
  Too coherent not enough of a drug induced ramble
  
  Without that "(probably)" I would have assumed this WAS at a rally......
- Hey now, things aren't that bad. No way Trump lives long enough for that.
- And then his children will run for office, and only because he's too old now.
  
  His kids lack a great deal of his rizz. DT Jr is too weak, Eric is dumb as dishwater, and Ivanka has the girl cooties that sink every woman Republican candidate for the Presidency.
I support a life-term prisondency for him.
Ok hear me out…
Trump wants to be a dictator, sure. He was a terrible president and it would be a disaster if he was reelected.
Now that you know my position, listen to what he said at the NRA convention. He wasn’t saying ‘hey maybe I’ll serve 3 terms’… what he was saying was ‘if I get elected in 2024 then would that be two terms or three terms? Because we all know I was elected to a second term back in 2020 and so even though Biden is acting president, I am in my second term now, so a win in 2024 is a third term.’
The man is an idiot and rambled incoherently throughout the NRA speech. He reiterated his usual batch of racist xenophobic statements and bragged about his uncle at MIT… he is a one trick pony and there is plenty to poke fun at.
Would he tout the idea of a third term for himself? Sure! Is that what he did in this case, not precisely.
- Oh you're right. I guess I forgot one could be that stupid
- Exactly. Of course, by putting forth the belief that 2020-2024 was his second term, he should just bow out since he has also said he would not want to challenge the 22nd amendment.
The only time we elected a president more than twice, it was a Socialist, and he was so popular that we had to pass a law after he was elected a fourth time so it didn’t happen again.
Edit: fixed!
- The only time we elected a president 3 times, it was a Socialist
  FDR was elected to four terms. He died 85 days into his fourth.
  and he was so popular that we had to pass a law to keep him from being elected a fourth time.
  The 22nd amendment wasn't even drafted until after FDR was dead, and wasn't ratified until 1951. And the language of the amendment specifically exempts the president at the time of ratification. The 22nd Amendment wouldn't have stopped Truman from running again, let alone his predecessor.
  
  Oops, fixed!
- FDR was a Social Democrat not a Democratic Socialist. Similar but very different
- FDR was not a socialist and the New Deal was a compromise from the existing capitalist power structure in order to harness and then diffuse the growing socialist energy in the country. It's a huge reason the New Deal focused so much on highway expansion instead of public transportation.
- I know that the overton window has moved a long way to the right since then, but FDR was a long fucking way from being a socialist; a social democrat at best, but probably more accurate to say he was just what a capitalist was before the neoliberal turn.
If he gets even one we are doomed
- I can't tell if you're one or those people who completely memory holed that he already had a term, or if you're making a joke that we're already doomed (the latter one is true, imo)
- He already had one, dumbass.
  
  We're doomed, dumbass.
  
  In the last one, he still had fear of consequences tempering his actions. If he gets in again, his fear of consequences will be from losing power, not what acts he commits to secure it or siphon benefits from.
  
  It's pretty obvious that person meant one more, dumbass.
- What a doozie of a way to start a sentence....
So let's see here, Trump is 77 years old, but will be 78 at the time of election. Let's just add eight years and we get 86... yep he's angling for president for life.
- Yep, and his brain will be mush, so who knows who'd really be running the show.
  
  Will be? It already is.
  
  It already is mush.
- He's angling for hereditary dictatorship.
- But Biden is too old already. SMH. Maybe he’ll get sucked out of a faulty window in his plane. Edit: that was a /s people.
Republicans hate the constitution, so… this checks out.
Lock him the fuck up already
noted fascist is a fascist, more at 5
Guys I'm starting to think that this Trump fellow might not like democracy
that's how dictators dictate
- Noted dictator, FDR.
  
  22nd amendment was passed as a direct response to FDR's four terms. But surely you knew that and are just being daft.
Not the first time he's done this.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4673353-trump-suggests-he-could-be-a-three-term-president-if-he-wins-election/
- That is just another article about the exact same incident..
  
  My mistake. Meant to post this link.
  https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/18/politics/donald-trump-third-term-2024/index.html
Man, all those guns, and no one shot him in the face multiple times. What a shame. Damn shame.
- That would never happen: These brave 2A champions have completely banned firearms from these conventions for security reasons.
- It's my biggest gripe against the left. Imagine betting your life on a game of football where one side is playing no contact tag rules and the other is playing full lethality death ball rules. We'll sit here and talk about how they're not playing fair, but pride parades won't march with guns. We'll cry about how horrid it is that they force their religion into our schools but we won't use the same system to fight it.
  The left will die for their beliefs, but the right will kill for them. Only one of those methods leaves survivors.
  
  As the saying goes, "go far enough left and you get your guns back." It's not leftists clutching pearls over "gun violence;" it's privileged centrist liberals (a.k.a. MLK's "white moderates") doing that.
To be honest I think Clinton or Obama would have been president for life if two term limits weren't imposed.
- FDR is why there's an amendment prohibiting it. He's speaking openly of violating the constitution. Hey "patriots", isn't that supposed to be a thing that makes you mad?
- I'm too young to chime in on Clinton, but I can see it with Obama for sure.
- Don't know about for life, but a pretty long tenure like Angela Merkle, yeah I could see that
- Obama was lucky to win his second term. His approval rating was already underwater and only Romney's own unlikeability saved him.
  Either way, this was a man who had functionally checked out back in 2014. He didn't want a third term.
  
  That's some easily disprovable bullshit: Obama's final presidential approval rating in 2017 was 59%, which is pretty good. So much for "checked out in 2014". Trump and Bush w had 34%, Clinton had the highest ever with 66%.
  https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/final-presidential-job-approval-ratings
  
  The Obama campaign did seem to flounder early on in the 2012 election against Romney, it just wasn't able to reproduce the magic of 2008. I recall Obama performing badly against Romney in the first two debates, just did not seem at his best. It wasn't actually until the VP debates after Joe Biden's performance against Paul Ryan that the Obama campaign got reinvigorated.
  
  And Trump is even more unlikable than Romney. No one has really been running terribly likeable candidates lately.
He really, really wants to stay out of prison.
Someone asked if Republicans will ever run a candidate other than Trump while he is alive. He has such a strong grip on the party that even if he keeps losing he may remain the R candidate, in 2028 and beyond.
- At this point it’s The Heritage Foundation who would win and run the presidency, Trump is just a bobble head conman running scams on his supporters
- They love suckin his chode
- I give him another 3 or 4 years, dude is in terrible shape.
Of course this was going to happen, it was only a matter of time.
What's newsworthy about this? Trump flirting with dictatorship isn't news, he already said multiple times he wants to be one.
- This so much. People need to recondition that entertainment is not news, and news should not be entertainment. News should be description of noteworthy (even if boring) factual events. A presumptive presidential candidate talking about violating the constitution of the United States, that is noteworthy; maybe not unexpected in this case, but noteworthy.
  We need to be less entertained by news and more informed by news. Tell me what presidential candidates are saying in the most mundane terms possible. Anything beyond the barest oblique (as opposed to direct) fact or factual description should be eschewed.
  
  Oh I agree with you.
  It's just that at this point it's like "wolf trying to eat three little piggies", no shit, really? Yes you're right, this is news but I'm so sick of having to hear the obvious. Give me the news where he died of coronary heart disease, which he will soon enough, or a drug overdose, which i also see very likely.
  Until then it will be more me stamping my bingo card, because of course he does
  <insert something horrible here>
  , than reading actual news
  
  I agree with you, but this is blatant misrepresentation of what actually happened, and that should worry you. I'm not saying this to defend Trump, I'm saying this to point out the misrepresentation of events by the news media.
The fucker is somehow going to actually do it isn't he? I swear...
- Through voter apathy and the bullshit lines about how Biden is too old.
  
  Biden is doing a good enough job ruining his own campaign. He is alienating his last base group, the young voters.
Are peoples memories that short? He posted this 2 months before he "tried" distancing himself from the idea.
https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1225174713992990721
Hmmmm sound more to me like he doesn't know the current max number of terms
Least Nixon had the bottle to leave
I understand his confusion here… the phrase is “consecutive sentences.”
What it sounds like to me, and apparently only me, is that he is saying here he is currently running for his third term since he "won" in 2020. Of course he has made comments before about how he likes how Putin and Xi keep getting to stay in power and wished he could do that, but it would help his cause if he could win the popular vote just once over his lame opponents.
Imagine if Democrats actually nominated someone worth voting for rather than just us voting against Trump. But I guess that's too much to ask for.
- He has also said his first term shouldn't count because he was impeached. Never give him the benefit of the doubt.
- I mean the allusion to FDR seems pretty clearly connected to the idea of further future terms. Trump always phrases these things in a way so he has plausible deniability. But the subtext is obvious if you pay attention.
- That's how I understood it too. I'll be first to believe he wants to change that law but this article is trash
And all that without even getting slammed or flattened. I guess he got away with it this time.
You know, FDR 16 years – almost 16 years – he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?
Sounds like he's just questioning whether the current Biden term is actually considered a Trump term. Just the usual election denial from him and the NRA crowd.
i mean, statistically there have been at least one president with more than two terms before.
This was also before there was a law that prevented it from happening.
- An Amendment has been repealed before by another.
  
  tru tru.
  But that doesn't mean it isn't still currently a law.
  
  The last amendment took over 202 years to get ratified. I’m not sure another amendment can really get passed anytime in the distant future.
Term 1 is to fail miserably
Term 2 is to make plans for a presidential term
Term 3 is to finally step up to the plate?
I can't imagine a suggest that makes him sound more incompetent lol
Just stop listening to him already...
FDR was president for 4 terms, a constitutional amendment can be repealed by another, see: alcohol prohibition
How appropriate.
He read that in the morning and misspoke. And that's how you get old people to say funny things.
Maybe have younger people running for president?

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