Re: [OT] Trump's third term

On Mar 31, 2025 at 8:28:25 AM PDT, "Rhino" <no_offline_contact@example.com>
wrote:

On 2025-03-31 10:49 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

 Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

 2025-03-30 11:30 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

 Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

 2025-03-30 10:05 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

 Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

 

 I see that Trump has mused about running for a third term. This CBC
 article explains why that couldn't happen and suggests that this puts an
 end to the discussion.

 

 
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-third-term-president-constitutional-1.7497480

 

 For some strange reason - ignorance, I expect - they complete ignore a
 perfectly legal way to get Trump a third term: amend the 22nd amendment
 to increase the number of terms or repeal that amendment altogether.

 

 If I remember correctly, he'd need to get the approval of 3/4 of the
 states and 2/3 of both chambers of Congress to agree and they'd only
 have a set number of years to do it but if Trump really is as popular as
 he thinks he is, that should be quite possible.

 

 The set number of years was a characteristic of specific amendments
 proposed in Congress but not others. It's not clear if that's
 constitutional.

 

 Fair enough. I was remembering the ERA which *almost* passed but fell
 slightly short. As I recall, they gave it an extra few years but it
 still fell short.

 

 ERA may have passed as additional state legislatures voted in favor
 after the expiration.

 

 Good luck to Trump on his quest to become dictator.

 

 Was FDR a dictator when he ran for his third and fourth terms?

 

 There are historians who have argued that FDR was part of the pre-WWII
 trend of countries that had been democracies turning toward autocracy.
 Also, FDR never told the voters that he was way too sick to be president
 when he ran for that fourth term.

 

 Roosevelt running for a fourth term when he was at death's door was, of
 course, morally wrong. So was Wilson failing to resign when he was
 massively incapacitated for many months during WWI and simply let his
 wife run things. Unfortunately, both acts were perfectly legal.

 
 I don't think so. In Wilson's case, it's known that there were times he
 wasn't making decisions. His wife and personal physician were acting on
 his behalf. That's illegal.

 
Did his wife and doctor consult Wilson about the various issues and
merely pass on his decisions or was he completely uncommunicative so
that they just took their best guesses about what he would have done had
he been fit? I don't have a real problem with the former but the latter
is obviously not cool. Simply passing on decisions he made has very
little to distinguish itself from him passing a handwritten message to
an underling.
 

 If the public had known in either case, we'd
 have gotten the 25th Amendment earlier than Eisenhower's heart attack.
 This was clearly a scenario the Founding Fathers hadn't anticipated,
 that a president could become incapacitated for an indefinite period of
 time without dying and there should have been a provision for temporary
 transfer of power.
 

It's hard to blame them though. You simply can't anticipate every
possible situation years - or centuries - in advance. Now, if a similar
situation had happened within living memory of the Founding Fathers,
they might have chosen to write laws to handle it.
 
Oh wait, there *was* a precedent that would have been known to them!
King George III was effectively incapacitated for many years with what
was believed now to be either porphyria or bipolar disorder. There was a
play and movie about it: The Madness of King George. The Wikipedia
article about George III isn't clear on when he bouts of madness began
but they finally became so severe that his son served in his stead as
Prince Regent in 1810 and finally replaced him permanently in 1820. That
was obviously too late for the first draft of the Constitution but
*could* have served as inspiration for an Amendment to deal with
comparable problems in America.
 

 It's also bizarre that there was no provision to fill of office of Vice
 President.
 

Agreed.
 
 

 Maybe the laws - or even the Constitution - should be amended to force
 every Presidential and VP candidate to pass a thorough medical (and
 mental) exam before they can be put on a Presidential/VP ballot and also
 pass an annual physical.

 
 The voters too? When these things are known, they may ignore the
 problem.
 

 . . .

 
Tests for voters have always been controversial and difficult. We can't
seem to agree on much in the way of minimum qualifications beyond age
and citizenship and even those are contested from some quarters. Other
limits, like education, property ownership, or other things always seem
to get struck down as unreasonable limitations.

I'm a big proponent of a basic political awareness test before being allowed
to vote!