Is Trump going to run for a third term?
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The purpose of this post is to start a discussion of this topic. A couple of notes to begin:
*The timeline here is very short. A year from now we’ll be at the same point in the cycle the Democrats were at in 2019, which is the last time either party had an actual contest for a presidential nomination. At that point we were being treated to 20-person debates among all the contenders. This of course puts J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, and whoever else may be out there, in an awkward position in terms of trying to gear up for 2028.
*The formal legalities here couldn’t be clearer, and may (or may not) prove to be irrelevant. One thing that interests me in particular is how a Trump run for a third term would be the clearest sort of legitimation crisis for the American legal system, and at this point I really have no idea how that system will end up handling it, if it should come to that. As always, there are transparent sophistries available if the relevant actors decide to ignore the law; whether they will or not is anyone’s guess at this point.
*As to the substantive issue here: Donald Trump is a raging narcissist of the most extreme type, who is terrified of three things, in ascending order of fear: prison, death, and being ignored. My own view is that he understands at some feral level that if he’s not president any more everyone Who Matters will suddenly be openly contemptuous of him, and, worse yet, no longer pay any attention to him.
Trump has been “joking” a lot lately about running again, but of course kidding on the square is Fascism 101.
Have at it.