This is a rather scary story about Trump really seriously intending to have a third term as president, if not president for life. It's horrible to contemplate, but we need to be ready for it. Read it. I do not know Jermaine Fowler.
--Kim
Jermaine Fowler ·Follow
October 28, 2025 (Tuesday)
When someone tells you the same thing for seven years, at some point you have to decide: are they joking, or are you?
Last week, one of Trump's closest advisors sat down with The Economist in Washington. Steve Bannon. Not on his podcast. Not at a conservative conference. In an interview with one of the world's most serious publications.
"He's gonna get a third term," Bannon said. "Trump is gonna be president in '28, and people just ought to get accommodated with that."
The editors pressed him. The 22nd Amendment is clear. No person can be elected president more than twice.
"There's many different alternatives," Bannon said. "At the appropriate time, we'll lay out what the plan is."
Not a slip. Not a joke. A plan.
Trump himself said it recently: "I'd love to do it."
And your brain is already working. Finding reasons this isn't real. He can't actually do that. The Constitution says no. He's just saying it to get attention. The courts would stop him. There's a reason why people need it to be a joke.
When someone tells you they want to break the rules, believing them costs something. Something uncomfortable. Something that means you have to decide what to do about it. So your brain does you a favor. It finds reasons they don't really mean it.
This isn't stupidity. It's self-protection.
Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf in 1925. The book laid out exactly what he planned to do. People called it bluster, the rantings of a failed politician who'd just gotten out of prison. He did everything and more and worse than he said he would do.
Vladimir Putin gave a speech in 2005. He called the collapse of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century." People said it was nostalgia, bitter talk from an ex-KGB agent. Then came Crimea in 2014. Then came the full invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The pattern isn't that leaders lie about their intentions. The pattern is that people can't afford to believe them. Because belief requires action. Dismissal requires nothing.
Trump has been saying this since 2018. That year, China's Xi Jinping eliminated term limits to make himself president for life. Trump's response: "He's now president for life... And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot someday."
In March of this year, he told NBC News there are "methods" to get around the 22nd Amendment. His campaign sold "Trump 2028" merchandise in the official store. In January, Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee introduced a resolution to amend the Constitution to allow Trump a third term.
Last month, Trump posted a video showing lawn signs: Trump 2024, Trump 2028, Trump 2032, all the way to "Trump 4Eva."
Then Bannon's interview.
Each time, people found a reason it wasn't real. And each time, the line moved.
The men who wrote the Constitution in 1787 spent four months in Philadelphia debating exactly this question. They'd just broken free from a king. They knew what unchecked power looked like.
Alexander Hamilton actually proposed that the president serve "during good behavior"—meaning for life, unless impeached. James Madison called it an "elective monarch" in his notes. The Convention rejected it.
They debated seven-year terms, eleven-year terms, even twenty-year terms. Edmund Randolph of Virginia called a single powerful executive "the foetus of monarchy." They were terrified of creating another king.
The compromise: four-year terms, no limit on reelection. Why no limits? Because they trusted George Washington to set the right example.
Washington did. He served two terms and walked away in 1796, even though he could have run again. That precedent held for 144 years.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt broke it.
Roosevelt was elected four times: 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944. He died in office on April 12, 1945, just eleven weeks into his fourth term. He'd been president for twelve years.
People were shaken. Not because Roosevelt was a tyrant, he wasn't. But because they learned that even a popular president, even during crises like the Great Depression and World War II, could accumulate too much power for too long.
In 1947, a Republican Congress passed the 22nd Amendment. It was ratified in 1951. The text is short: "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice."
It exists because we learned what the Founders suspected: power accumulates. Even with good people, good intentions, and bad emergencies.
Trump doesn't hide who he admires. Xi Jinping eliminated China's term limits in 2018. Trump called it "great" and said "maybe we'll have to give that a shot someday." Putin has been in power since 1999. Kim Jong Un inherited his dictatorship and will die in office.
The leaders Trump praises are leaders who removed the limits on their power.
The 22nd Amendment is clear. Trump has been elected twice. Under the Constitution, he cannot be elected again.
But rules only work when institutions enforce them.
Amending the Constitution requires two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of state legislatures. The votes don't exist. That path is closed.
The worrying paths all depend on the same thing: enough captured actors willing to test bad legal theories. Claims that the amendment only restricts "election" not "acting as president." Claims about emergency powers requiring postponed elections. Claims about succession loopholes the 12th Amendment already blocks.
None of these theories are legally sound. But legally sound matters less than: who will enforce the boundary? Who will say no?
A third term doesn't happen in isolation. It happens when other systems have already been captured.
Trump has promised to reinstate Schedule F, an executive order that would let him fire tens of thousands of federal workers and replace them with loyalists. Control who enforces rules, you control which rules get enforced.
Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed laws giving themselves more power over election certification. The 2020 election showed that governors and secretaries of state could refuse to overturn results. So you replace them with people who will.
The president appoints the heads of federal agencies, the FBI, U.S. Attorneys across the country. Appoint loyalists. Fire dissenters. Make independence mean loyalty.
The Supreme Court has six conservative justices, three appointed by Trump. The same Court that overturned Roe v. Wade. The same Court that ruled presidents have broad immunity from prosecution. Would they entertain a novel theory about the 22nd Amendment? About emergency powers? About what "elected" really means?
The third term isn't the plan. It's the crown. The plan is building a system where rules apply to some people and not others, where institutions protect power instead of checking it, and where the question isn't "Is this legal?" but "Who's going to stop me?"
The explanations write themselves. The courts would never allow it. Congress would impeach him. The military wouldn't go along.
But the courts didn't stop Roe from being overturned. Congress didn't impeach him. Twice. And enough people going along is how every democracy dies.
In America in 1787, the Founders spent four months debating presidential power because they knew the authoritarian impulse was real. In America in 1951, we passed the 22nd Amendment because FDR proved that even popular leaders in democracies can hold power too long.
Trump is telling you what he wants. His advisor is saying there's a plan. The leaders he admires eliminated their term limits. He's been saying it for seven years. The merchandise exists. The legal theories are being floated. The institutions are being captured.
When does "I'd love to do it" stop sounding hypothetical?
Picture a county election board meeting in November 2028. Three Republicans, two Democrats. Trump's name is on the ballot. The Democrats move to remove it—22nd Amendment, clear as day. The vote is 3-2. The name stays.
Multiply that scene by fifty counties. A hundred counties. Enough counties.
See the lawyers who prepared the memo. See the judges who agreed to hear the case. See the officials who certified the results. Each person who said yes when the moment came to say no.
Hamilton's notes from 1787 proposed a president for life. The 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951 out of fear. Bannon says "there's a plan" like he's discussing dinner reservations.
How much longer will it need to be a joke?
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