Republicans have talked themselves into believing that 2024 is absolutely, positively, the last time they’ll have to deal with Donald Trump. Yesterday Benjy Sarlin brought the room down by arguing that even if Trump loses in 2024, he might run again in 2028, actuarial tables be damned.
Is that possible? Absolutely. If Trump loses in 2024, he could easily mount another campaign—though this is as much an indictment of Don Jr. as a plausible heir as anything else.
But let me take this a step further.
During the Republican primaries, one of the arguments that Good Republicans will deploy against Trump as a way of passively challenging him will be to say something along the lines of, “Trump is great! But if Trump is the nominee, we can only get four years, because he couldn’t run for reelection in 2028. We need a Republican nominee who can give us eight years.”
Well I come to you from the future and I’m here to tell you that Donald Trump will respond with the following:
A lot of people are saying that, actually, I could run again. I was treated so unfairly during my first term—the Russia hoax, the witch hunt, the lovers—more unfairly than any president in history. [sniffs] And so I should get a third term. Let me tell you that we’re looking into it and we’ll have a statement very soon. It’ll be a strong statement. And I think a lot of you are going to be very happy with it.
In response, his Republican challengers will gape and sputter and twist their toes in the dirt. But they won’t say that a third term is impossible. Elite Republicans in elected office will decline to comment. And the various precincts of Conservatism Inc. will either ignore this claim, coyly play along with it, or roll their eyes and say, “Well of course this is nonsense so it doesn’t matter. Trump just says stuff.”
Why am I certain that this future is coming down the pike?
Because Trump already did it in 2020.
Look, there was a lot going on in 2020. Impeachment. A pandemic. Massive unemployment. Hundreds of thousands of Americans dying. A presidential campaign. So much to keep track of.
So you probably don’t remember this moment at a rally in Wisconsin in August of 2020:
“We are going to win four more years,” Trump said at a rally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on Monday. “And then after that, we’ll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years.”
The crowd went wild. Republican voters loved it. And this idea wasn’t a one-off bit of improv. It was a staple. In September at a Nevada rally he said,
And 52 days from now we’re going to win Nevada, and we’re going to win four more years in the White House. And then after that, we’ll negotiate, right? Because we’re probably — based on the way we were treated — we are probably entitled to another four after that.
Do you remember what Republican elected officials and people in conservative media said about the frequent assertion by their candidate that he would flout the Constitution in pursuit of a third presidential term?
All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.
So get ready for the Trump Gets a Third Term argument. It’s coming.
I knew Trump would run again in 2024. I said it on the day after the election was called. But I’m not sure we’ll see him run again in 2028 if he loses. Losing twice seems like a death knell, even for him.
But this? I think there’s an excellent chance that he’ll argue that he deserves a third term because people were mean to him in his first. Would it work? Who Knows. But by that time we might not even be having elections anymore. And his status as a super-hero among the cult will be unassailable. Yes, it could happen.
Have a nice rest…