Third Time’s the Charm
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Jason Scott Montoya @JasonSMontoya
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Apr 3, 2024
- Post
"My guess is that he’ll discern some “emergency” in 2028 that requires him to remain in office past the expiration of his term. He could have tried that in 2020 too, but that would have been a high-stakes gamble. For one thing, he believed he would win a second term fair and square at the polls (and nearly did), making a heavy-handed power grab unnecessary. For another, he might have sensed that he lacked the critical mass of devout loyalists in prominent positions needed to carry out such a plot successfully.
None of that will be true in 2028. His administration will be staffed to the gills with diehard cronies and, being term-limited, he’ll have nothing to lose by contriving an extraordinary excuse to try to stay in power. It won’t be a third term so much as an indefinite continuation of his second. As it happens, a close friend and adviser of his has a bit of personal experience with that."
Jason Scott Montoya @JasonSMontoya
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Apr 3, 2024
- Post
"However this ends up playing out, reelecting him this fall guarantees that power won’t transfer smoothly in 2029. That’s especially true if a Democrat is elected in 2028: The apocalyptic terms in which MAGA populists routinely frame the prospect of left-wing governance, starting with the “Flight 93” nonsense in 2016 and extending to Trump’s stump speeches today, makes it impossible to imagine him tossing the keys to the White House to, say, Gavin Newsom. Even if he’s disinclined to interfere, the Republican base that he’s spent nearly 10 years radicalizing will demand it. They’re better authoritarians at this point than he is.
Choosing Trump in November means choosing chaos. We all know it, or should know it, by now. We seem resolved to choose it anyway."
Jason Scott Montoya @JasonSMontoya
·
Apr 3, 2024
- Curated in Donald Trump 2024