Will Trump run again in 2028 and will the SCOTUS sign off on this?

I would say that the odds are better than even that the answer to both questions is “yes,” with the caveat that current actuarial tables say that the odds of the average 79-year-old man (I understand that he’s not average m’kay?) being dead 42 months from now are 20.3%. Plus, like Nigel Incubator-Jones, if Trump is dead he won’t necessarily be out of contention.

If anything, Trump’s statement yesterday that he “probably” won’t run tends to suggest that he will, since it means he’s already considering it in the reptilian depths of his limbic system:

In his Aug. 5 interview with CNBC, he said he’d like to run again, even as he indicated he did not plan to mount another campaign.

“I’d like to run, I have the best poll numbers I’ve ever had. You know why? Because people love the tariffs,” Trump said.

News stories about this invariably note that the 22nd amendment to the Constitution prohibits a president for running for a third term, and that in order to change that you need to do X, Y, and Z, which obviously isn’t happening. So if Trump does run what will happen is that he will announce that almost all constitutional law experts, really top people, agree that the amendment doesn’t apply to him, and the only holdouts are woke radical leftist trans atheists, who believe me are not good people, but bad news, really bad.

I think he’ll run again for a number of reasons, the most important being that his malignant narcissism is now utterly addicted to the attention he gets from being president and running for president and being able to ensure that everyone everywhere is always talking about nothing but Trump Trump Trump Trump (Malkovich) Trump Trump, and Trump. And yes I realize this post instantiates this perverse dynamic in the most perverse possible way so don’t bother to point that out.

A comment from MacK a few months ago, responding to a post in which I argued that Trump is exactly the same empty narcissistic shell of a pseudo-person that he was 25 years ago, except now with creeping dementia, captures this well:

One of the terrifying thoughts about Trump is that all he wants is to be the centre of attention, the top of every news story. He doesn’t care particularly if it is good or bad, just so long as every news show starts with “President Trump today…” If you see it that way, it doesn’t matter if his policy choices are a disaster, reduce people to penury, cause deaths or get people killed – indeed, the more horrific the likely consequences, the more he is “stoked.” Moreover, many of his closest advisors, Stephen Miller for example, “get off” on being loathed. About the only other thing Trump cares about is money – and if you look at how he spends his, it’s always to get attention – the jet, the helicopters painted TRUMP, the gold leaf, the pneumatic morons on his arm…

Fixing anything, or ending a debacle, fiasco or farce, especially one of Trump’s own creation or instigation has no value if it puts an end to the headlines – and Trump sees his role in the White House primarily as a way to always be the centre of attention.

I think this is correct, and that Trump is no more capable of walking away from the narcissist’s hellish paradise he’s created than any other hopeless junkie is capable of getting that monkey off his back. This will be even more true when he considers that stepping aside will require handing the world’s most powerful publicity machine to a rival, no matter how craven and unctuous (hi J.D.) that rival may he while currying favor from his god-king.

As for the SCOTUS, there’s a completely ridiculous and depraved and intellectually bankrupt route for five authoritarian hacks to take if they want to sign off on this farce, which is to declare the matter a political question, and therefore not subject to judicial review. Translated into normal people talk, the argument here is that certain sorts of constitutional questions are delegated by the Constitution itself to the other branches rather than the courts to decide. The classic example is impeachment: according to current SCOTUS doctrine anyway, the courts have no role in deciding what constitutes and impeachable offense, what a impeachment “trial” must look like, etc. I can easily see Good ‘Ol Balls & Strikes and four of his henchpersons declaring that who the Electors choose is ultimately just such a question, and not something regarding which the courts should interfere, at least when it involves Donald Trump, who many people are saying is the greatest president in American history.

So that’s where I think this is going.