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Constitutional amendment to allow Trump third term introduced in the House

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Constitutional amendment to allow Trump third term introduced in the House

A Republican House member introduced a resolution to amend the U.S. Constitution to allow President Donald Trump — and any other future president — to be elected to serve a third term.

This is not my Life @lemm.ee

Constitutional amendment to allow Trump third term introduced in the House

politics @lemmy.world

Constitutional amendment to allow Trump third term introduced in the House

78 comments
  • ″No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than three times, nor be elected to any additional term after being elected to two consecutive terms,” the amendment states.

    They are trying to make sure Obama can't run again

  • Are term limits conceptually good? Aren't they just arbitrary?

    • It wasn't until FDR that we made term limits part of the constitution. He served 4 terms that eventually led to the New Deal. The new deal was devastating for the capitalist class at the time, and they have been working tirelessly to undo the effects since. However, I, personally, believe the implementation of this into the constitution was to prevent another series of presidencies as impactful as FDR. This isn't the first time the legislature attempted to repeal it, either. They tried and failed in 1956. Truman described the law as "Stupid" and one of the worst amendments of the Constitution, next to the Prohibition amendment. Regan also spoke out against it, as well as Bill Clinton. Like many others have pointed out, many western democracies do not have term limits. I think it's also worth pointing out that many western democracies also do not directly elect their president, but instead their president is elected by the party (much like China does, and how the USSR did, and many other AES states.)

      • Among socialists, I think we all agree FDR was a capitalist through and through who understood the situation America was in. He used the New Deal to save capitalism from being overthrown by the very real threat of socialist revolution. The New Deal acted as a release valve.

        It's something the generation of New Deal Democrats understood (such as LBJ's Great Society program) current day democrats don't. Today's democrats are so high on their own supply of bullshit Austrian economics they don't realize the consequences of austerity.

    • IMO I think they aren't any good in a vacuum but I do think it's a good thing that the US specifically has them for the president. If they weren't there, a determined ghoul administration would be much more effective at just running the gauntlet for decades (the eternal Obama). Currently the "deep state" fulfills that function and there's a limit to how much they can do domestically, with the inherent limit that they have to act behind the scenes.

    • There's arguments to be made for and against. On one hand, no term limits means someone can focus on governing, rather than constantly running a campaign. Incumbents often have to do less work in this regard because they're already established. On the other, it means it's harder to remove incumbents. You see this a lot in local elections where people often run unopposed. They get elected anyway, regardless of their performance.

      Some places will just make the terms longer (such as 10 years or more) so a candidate will want to leave office, yet still have time to accomplish what they want. One of the US's problems is we're on four year cycles for president and 2 year cycles for congress. This is especially deceptive because of the delay between laws passing and the effects of those laws being seen. The economy is one example. We don't see the consequences of a president's economic policies until nearly the end of their second term due to turnover, people moving, companies setting up 5 year plans, stock dividends, etc.

    • The PRC doesn’t have term limits neither do several western countries.

    • Consider term limits. The US Constitution was amended to enforce term limits in direct response to FDR’s popular 12-year presidency (he died in office, going on for 16). As a policy, it is self-evidently quite anti-democratic (robbing the people of a choice), but nevertheless it has been conceptually naturalized to the extent that the 2019 coup against Evo Morales was premised explicitly on the idea that repeated popular electoral victories constituted a form of dictatorship. If rotation was important to avoid corruption or complacency, corporations and supreme courts would institute term limits too. Term limits ensure that in the miraculous scenario that a scrupulous, charismatic, and intelligent individual becomes a rebellious political executive, they won’t be in power long enough to meaningfully challenge the entrenched power of corporate vehicles manned by CEOs with decades of experience. Wolfgang Schäuble, a powerful advocate of austerity policy in Europe, succinctly summarized the extent to which electoral democracy is subordinate: “Elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy.” One Party States and Democratic Centralism are not the result of lack of sophistication or cronyism, they are a proven bulwark that acknowledges that political power will often need to be exerted against the will of Capital, and so the wielders of said power must necessarily undergo a much more serious vetting process than a popularity contest.

      from https://redsails.org/why-marxism/

  • They're doing it for the wrong reasons, but I'd be happy if that limit wasn't there. It's fundamentally anti-democratic. Not that the us is a democracy and removing it now will just make fascist consolidation of power so much easier, but still

    • Nah, keeping a limit forces the MIC and other entrenched powers trying to push the US agenda around the world to stay in the bureaucratic shadows instead of gaining decades in the presidency outright.

      • Not that the us is a democracy and removing it now will just make fascist consolidation of power so much easier, but still

78 comments