[throwaway3485t8]

Given that people are being arrested for the most stupid reasons in Turkey, I can understand people not wanting to put their life on the line. 10 years ago I could have seen people protesting (see Gezi park protests) but now ? Not really.

What's worse is that somehow plenty of Turk are fine with it. Inflation above 100% for long time, crappy salaries, people can't even afford rents but the leader's party still get about 30% of the votes.

This is also a lesson for fellow Americans: don't think that just because Trump won't be able to lower the price of the eggs, will make rural voters miserable and make America a worse place means that at the next election you get rid of him. Once the environment is set up properly, anything can be justified, and with the right mindset the voter will accept any bullshit. Remember, "we always have been at war with Eastasia"

[labster]

Well, damn, that was my strategy to deal with Trump, waiting on the economy. I guess it’s all joever for American democracy. 250 years was a pretty good run all things considered.

[cko]

We had Japanese internment camps, Jim Crowe laws and McCarthyism and survived. Let's not write off American democracy just yet.

[archagon]

I would argue that every prior president at least respected the Constitution, democratic norms, and the peaceful transfer of power. If the ruling party cares more about their goals than democracy, what hope do we have?

[actionfromafar]

These things were despicable but not an attack on the system itself. This time is different. I haven’t written American democracy off yet, but I wouldn’t bet the farm.

[pjc50]

Those were the system. The core Americanness of American democracy is white supremacy, and there's a huge number of voters who will demand repression for other Americans. Usually defining them as "not Americans" along the way, as with the attack on birthright citizenship and green card holders.

[spiderfarmer]

Even if democracy survives this time round, the people who enabled its demise thus far won’t go anywhere. There are so many angry, misinformed and potentially violent fringe groups with easy access to weapons, it’s truly disgusting. And they’ll feel emboldened by how easy the fabric of society seems to come apart.

I have seen the culture on HN change in the ten years I have been a member. The people who defend Trump and his policies now would never have done so 10 years ago. It goes to show that the USA we remember doesn’t seem to exist anymore.

[psychlops]

Trump can't run for election again as it's his second term. Voting doesn't apply.

[dragonwriter]

He can't run within the Constitution if it isn't changed. OTOH, his concern about whether his actions are Constitutional and the ability and willingness of any other institution to impose meaningful consequences on his unconstitutional acts don't support the conclusion that his future actions will be limited to what the Constitution allows.

[stickfigure]

A constitutional amendment requires ratification by 3/4 of the states. Even getting one proposed requires 2/3 of both houses of congress. This is not going to happen.

Simply ignoring the constitution and cancelling the vote? There's no way he will be able to shift the Overton window that far in ~3 years.

[dragonwriter]

> Simply ignoring the constitution and cancelling the vote?

How about ignoring the Constitution and just running anyway?

> There's no way he will be able to shift the Overton window that far in ~3 years.

Yeah, even totalitarians these days hold elections for show. I absolutely expect that there will formally be an election in 2028.

[kelnos]

> How about ignoring the Constitution and just running anyway?

What does that even mean? He can certainly mount a campaign, and the RNC delegates could even all pick him at the convention, but elections are run by the states, and they are under no obligation to violate the constitution by allowing his name on the ballot or counting write-in votes for him.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the shittiest red states in the US would put him on anyway, but I sincerely hope it wouldn't be enough for him to win.

Even if somehow he did win a 2028 election, Congress has to certify the results, and, depending on the partisan makeup at the time of certification, that could be a non-starter.

And even if that doesn't stop him, even with the current composition of SCOTUS, I find it hard to believe they'd allow him to remain in office for a third term. Of course, courts can be ignored; then it's up to the military, and then we've truly lost.

There are so many ways pushing Trump as the 2028 candidate could blow up in their faces, I don't think even the GOP is stupid enough to allow that to happen, regardless of what Trump's base wants.

> I absolutely expect that there will formally be an election in 2028.

There isn't "an" election. There are 51 elections, run by each state and by DC. I think this is one of the few strengths of our electoral system when it comes to federal elections: making elections into a totalitarian sham means subversion on a difficult level. Blue states will never bow to that, red states don't have to (as they'll already vote red), and there's so much scrutiny on the swing states that it would be incredibly difficult to pull off.

[dragonwriter]

> What does that even mean? He can certainly mount a campaign, and the RNC delegates could even all pick him at the convention, but elections are run by the states, and they are under no obligation to violate the constitution by allowing his name on the ballot or counting write-in votes for him.

The majority of states are GOP governed, and are unlikely to disqualify their parties nominee even if they are Constitutionally ineligible. As for other states, the federal courts already stopped them from removing Trump from the primary ballot in 2024 over state determination of constitutional ineligibility, why wouldn't an even-more-Trump-appointee-dominated federal judiciary do the same in 2028, leaving ineligibility determinations to the Congress when it judges the electoral vote?

[vkou]

> There's no way he will be able to shift the Overton window that far in ~3 years.

Given how far it's shifted in two months, how far it shifts every day, and given that there are 46 more months to go, I wouldn't hold my breath on that.

[labster]

3/4 of all states not currently in rebellion have to approve amendments. Already states like California and New York are displaying suspicious DEI tendencies, unlike the patriotic states around the Gulf of America. What if they start rebelling against our elected leader?

[archagon]

https://www.thirdtermproject.com/third-term has some ideas:

> Constitutional Amendment: The U.S. Constitution can be amended by an act of Congress. Republicans must publicly get behind the third-term project.

> Running as Vice President: President Trump can run as Vice President with a space filler as President in 2028. Perhaps Donald Trump Jr. could run on a Trump/Trump ticket before gracefully resigning on Jan. 21, 2028 after securing victory. This plan while unorthodox would show that MAGA cannot be stopped by any procedural rule.

> Supreme Court Ruling: The 22nd Amendment bans anyone from serving two terms in office, but it is not completely clear if that refers to two presidential terms under any circumstances or two consecutive presidential terms. There are legal challenges in the works to clear up the ambiguity regarding the 22nd Amendment. The conservative rule-of-law justices on the Supreme Court would be able to settle this once and for all, making it clear that the 22nd Amendment would allow Trump a third term as it would only be his second consecutive term.

[archagon]

Also, Bannon: "We're working on it."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

[gizzlon]

Are you 100% sure there are no obscure laws or something that can be used to postpone an election somehow? :(

How about simply refusing to accept a loss, calling the election rigged and fake..

Or simply putting a puppet as the candidate. Believe Putin did this some years ago.

[vkou]

He wouldn't need a law. He'd just do what he wants, some judge will rule it illegal, and he'll ignore the ruling. That playbook has worked up until this point, why stop?

Elections would be held, but there's no reason to assume their outcome will be respected.

[nullify88]

Start a war perhaps? Taking an example from the Netanyahu playbook.

[dragonwriter]

> Start a war perhaps?

Or just declare that one already exists because of a foreign invasion or attack. Which he has already done once in the past week (as a pretext for invoking the Alien Enemies Act), and has given pretty clear signals (via his "fentanyl is a WMD" order) that he intends to do again, more broadly.

[kelnos]

A constitutional amendment to change presidential term limits is essentially impossible to get ratified.

The states run the elections, not the federal government, so any state that actually is faithful to the constitution will not put him on the ballot in 2028 (and will not count votes where he's written in), regardless of what he tries to do. Hopefully that's more than 270 electoral votes worth of states.

[cwillu]

The worry isn't that the law says he can't, the worry is that the law won't be sufficient to make the attempt unthinkable.

[mullingitover]

He couldn’t run this time, constitutionally speaking. He is an insurrectionist, according to a state court.

The SC said that didn’t matter, it would take an act of congress to disqualify him.

The same mechanism prevents (or doesn’t, rather) him from running for a third term as prevented him from running as an insurrectionist.

[conception]

I assume they’ll say he was robbed in 2020 and it’s two consecutive terms he gets. And congress won’t stop him. At least 40% of the electorate will support him. Most states will put him on the ballot, threatening to remove the democratic candidate if the others don’t. He will be in charge of the FEC and the various enforcement mechanisms, as he is now. So then what?

[kelnos]

> I assume they’ll say he was robbed in 2020 and it’s two consecutive terms he gets.

That's not how it works. 22A says:

"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."

Terms do not need to be consecutive to count toward the two-election limit.

There is, I believe a loophole: he can be elected vice president in 2028, and the president (whoever it may be) can resign, elevating Trump to the presidency again. Not sure if the courts would allow that, but who knows if the courts will be particularly relevant by 2028. Even if they wouldn't, they could elect a puppet president that just signs off on anything Trump wants to do.

Ultimately, though, I think all of this is kinda irrelevant. Trump is a huge problem, certainly, but the playbook for his administration this time was written by other people. JD Vance, for example, could be the one executing that playbook, and do more or less just as much damage to the country. The GOP doesn't need Trump in the future to continue to dismantle our democracy and funnel wealth more and more into the new American oligarchs. They just need to continue to dupe gullible, disaffected voters into supporting destructive politics.

[conception]

Obviously that’s not how it works but do the majority of Americans know that? Vaccines also don’t cause autism but here we are.

The question is still who is going to stop him.

[pjc50]

The main obstacle to perpetual trump rule is his own age.

[everybodyknows]

Vance certainly can ...

[pstuart]

That's just a dumb rule and only losers would follow it. /s

Trump's made no secret about the fact that he doesn't intend to leave office, his enablers have disdain for democracy and want a king. They very well may pull it off, as they've done whatever they liked regardless so far.

I want to be wrong about this but my hopes are tempered.

[kelnos]

Despite everything that's happened, I'm still fairly optimistic. While it's true that Trump has been purging people loyal to the constitution, and installing toadies in their places, I still have faith that the military would refuse to support Trump if he were lawfully required to leave office, even if a good chunk of military leadership are Trump loyalists. Officers and enlisted soldiers can still refuse to follow illegal orders, and I do believe that, by and large, our military has plenty of honorable people in it who would do the right thing, and remember that they swear their loyalty to the constitution, not to the president.

And even with purges at the FBI, US Marshals Service, and Secret Service, I have to believe there are still enough people in those organizations that would not stand for Trump illegally remaining in office.

Just because someone is a Republican, it doesn't mean they'd support a lifetime dictator in office.

Of course, if it comes down to the military to ensure the proper and legal transfer of power, we're well and truly screwed.