Democracy in action
Posted by LaudateAgno on 2024-July-29 20:29:59, MondayIn reply to Trump's intent.. posted by honesty on 2024-July-29 07:06:53, Monday
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Though Trump has not indicated anything like what you've described except in the imaginations of crazed liberals, let's imagine just for fun that it's true that Trump wants to serve more than two terms. First of all, he would hardly be the only president who desired such a thing. FDR wanted to, and he did. Obama certainly wanted to, and has been effectively working behind the scenes in lieu of Biden's missing mind. Now let's imagine that Republicans in general also want Trump to be able to serve more than two terms. One way to do this would be by declaring emergency measures, as in the case of FDR; this would require far more than mere Republican support. Another way would be exactly as you describe: Republicans could decide it would be better if a president of any party be able to serve more than two terms; this would therefore require modification of an constitutional amendment. As you say, this in turn would require they control both houses, and secure support from 32 states (that'd be something!). We're really stretching it now, but it could happen; if it did, it would entail that the view of the great majority of US citizens believed it would be a good idea for a president to be able to serve more than two terms. What you are describing is the playing out of a democratic process built into the constitution. It would amount to an amendment to the constitution made no more or less democratically than any other of the 27 amendments (or the repeal of an amendment, in this case). Now there are good reasons not to want presidents to serve more than two terms, and you could argue that it would be a "threat to democracy." There are also good reasons to argue the opposite; you can argue about how good for democracy any bit of constitutional law may be (I'm particularly critical of the 19th amendment myself). But in any case, the process you describe would not be some scary threat, but the will of the people playing itself out. |
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