This just in: Donald Trump cannot run for a third term as president. As is often the case, especially in this second term, Trump has been trolling the Left with his musings on the subject.
For months, Trump has teased the idea of a third term, including selling Trump 2028 merchandise and saying he would “love to do it.” Others have floated the idea that he could run for vice president and take over once the elected president stepped down. “I think the people wouldn’t like that,” Trump responded. “It’s too cute. It wouldn’t be right.”
Trump conceded yesterday that he can’t do any of it. “I would say that if you read it, it’s pretty clear I’m not allowed to run. It’s too bad. But we have a lot of great people.”
What is he reading? The Constitution — specifically the 22nd Amendment. “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice,” it says, “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 President more than once.”
Case closed.
As an aside, the only president who didn’t voluntarily follow George Washington’s example of serving only two terms was Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat hero. The 22nd Amendment was an acknowledgment that external restraints were needed after FDR’s “example.”
Trump’s trolling does, however, masterfully highlight some things, and it exposes the Left’s Trump Derangement Syndrome.
First, as a constitutionally focused publication, we here in our humble shop think plenty of other constitutional issues are “pretty clear” as well. The Bill of Rights protects our God-given liberties, such as free speech, religious liberty, and the right to self-defense. Leftists routinely undermine or outright infringe on those rights, however, all while insisting that the real “rights” are things like free healthcare and food stamps. Those things are benefits paid for by someone else, which by definition makes them not rights.
Speaking of healthcare, it’s “pretty clear” that the Constitution does not authorize a federal mandate that health insurance companies cover certain services, followed by a mandate that every American buy said insurance. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts saw it differently.
We also happen to think the 14th Amendment is “pretty clear” that birthright citizenship doesn’t apply to the children of illegal aliens. We’ll see what the Court says on that.
If only members of both parties were as steadfastly dedicated to the Constitution as left-wingers are the second someone hints at a third Trump term.
That leads me to the second major point: leftist hysteria.
“He has a good time with that,” explained House Speaker Mike Johnson, “trolling the Democrats whose hair is on fire at that very prospect.” As former adviser and leading third-term proponent Steve Bannon put it, “It’s exploding liberals’ heads, progressive heads that Trump’s going to be with them forever.”
Leftists overreacting — what else is new?
“I fear that we will not have an election in 2028,” fretted Democrat California Governor Gavin Newsom last month. “I really mean that in the core of my soul [narrator: no, he doesn’t] unless we wake up to the code red, what’s happening in this country, and we wake up soberly to how serious this moment is.”
In article after article after article, the Leftmedia breathlessly explains why an attempted third Trump term would completely run afoul of the Constitution.
Many of the articles at least serve the purpose of explaining how the process works for amending the Constitution, and why it would be all but impossible for Trump to do as he desires. The Americans threatening to loot Walmart over food stamps and screaming to high heaven about the White House ballroom could certainly stand to learn more civics.
Some articles, however, like Michael Luttig’s in The Atlantic, veer off into derangement. “The question weighing heavily on the minds of many Americans,” he opines, “is whether Trump will subvert next year’s elections or the 2028 presidential election to extend his reign.” In fact, Luttig warns, “Donald Trump is trying to amass the powers of a king.”
The same “king” who can’t keep the government open because the Senate’s Democrat minority keeps blocking him? Yeah, that one.
To be sure, Trump has been a CEO for most of his life, and he absolutely does not want to be told what he can and can’t do. You could argue that he is a narcissist with an authoritarian streak who laments, tests, and sometimes outright resists the limits on his presidential powers. He tried with all his might to hold onto office after losing the 2020 election, however unfair and rigged that election was.
When considering those things, it’s not surprising that people would take him far too literally when he teases about a third term.
At the same time, it’s amusing to see leftists suddenly discovering constitutional limits to government power. From Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama to Joe Biden, Democrat presidents have blown past those limits, greatly expanding federal authority over vast swaths of American life, often to cheers from the same Leftmedia outlets now decrying Trump.
I would dearly love to see a return to the Constitutional Republic established by our Founders. The left-wingers attending “No Kings” protests and writing media explainers about the 22nd Amendment have no interest in that, of course. They just can’t stand that Donald Trump is president.
