Photo: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg/Getty Images
It’s time to consider the remote possibility that Donald Trump will attempt to violate the Constitution and seek a third term. In a recent interview with NBC News, he appeared distinctly open to the prospect of running again, and The Wall Street Journal reported his attorney had studied the idea in 2023. Whether Trump’s kidding or not, it’s worth pondering the dark logistics of such an endeavor. After all, he did attempt to, quite haphazardly, overturn the results of the 2020 election. How close he genuinely came is up for debate, but he did spur a deadly insurrection at the Capitol. A replay of January 6, at a minimum, should not be ruled out.
There is a long-standing, if tiring, debate about whether Trump is a fascist. He certainly has authoritarian tendencies and longs for far greater power — whether he can truly attain it in this unwieldy Federalist system remains an open question. Even now, with the malicious new deportation regime and the wanton budget cutting of DOGE, much of what lies before us is distinctly American, as the writer and academic Daniel Bessner recently argued. Trump isn’t the first president to ignore the rule of law or forcibly try to deport legal residents without serious justification. He’s not the first president to flirt with foolhardy imperialism, either.
But Trump is uniquely unpredictable. George W. Bush never mused about a third term for himself; Bill Clinton once did but made clear it was not allowed under the Constitution. Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that he holds political norms in contempt. And the unsettling undercurrent of our current moment — and the American Republic, broadly — is that much of it does rest on these precedents and traditions. If Trump decides never to listen to another federal judge, the judicial branch can’t marshal its own military and arrest him. And if Trump does declare sometime in 2027 that he’s feeling wonderful and would like the unconstitutional third term, what’s to stop him from trying to get it?
Let’s imagine a scenario. Upon announcing at a 2027 campaign rally that he is running again, Trump successfully cows the rest of the Republican Party. If the likes of J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio are deeply ambitious, pining for the presidency themselves, they still defer to Trump. In July or August 2028, the Trump-dominated Republican National Committee renominates him. As is its right, it cancels state primaries or holds them while some nominal anti-Trump opposition is batted away. Come late summer, Trump is the GOP nominee for the fourth straight time. The Democrats declare him illegitimate, but what does it matter? All they can do is run in the election. After a protracted primary fight, they’ve got their own battle-tested nominee. The nominee is ready for Trump.
In the fall of 2028, it’s difficult to see how Trump, nearing the end of his second term, will be very popular. Approval ratings slide over time, and Americans weary of their leaders. As of now, it doesn’t appear Trump will have a strong hand to play. Inflation persists, tariffs won’t help, and if the Republican Congress slashes Medicaid, there will be a backlash. The economy may boom in a few years, but Americans are, for now, pessimistic. Come 2028, Democrats should have control of the House, assuming a typical midterm wave year and the overperformance Democrats have enjoyed in lower-turnout elections. If Hakeem Jeffries is the speaker, Trump’s legislative agenda is dead on arrival.
Could Trump, attempting his third term, win the Electoral College? Possibly. But a more likely scenario is a version of 2020, where a surge in Democratic turnout dooms him. We can assume, of course, Trump won’t care. He’ll say the election is stolen. He’ll run his old playbook. He’ll declare he wants to remain in the White House and should.
Then the United States will enter a new crisis phase. Trump could refuse to participate in the transition and declare he’ll refuse, on January 20, to vacate the White House. The new Democratic president, in control of the military, would then force Trump out — maybe literally with the MAGA monarch ushered out onto Pennsylvania Avenue. Or consider this scenario, even less likely but worth mulling: Trump does, like the fascist dictators of old, assume absolute control of the military and the so-called deep state. Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, Rubio, and the rest are able to install blind loyalists at all levels of the Pentagon, CIA, and FBI. Trump has his own version of the Brownshirts. The new president-elect, a Democrat, comes to the White House without his or her own army. Trump dares the Democrat to come inside, to walk across the lawn. He’s got his shock troops stationed around Washington. Their guns are raised.
This is the most remote possibility. Trump, at 82, would have to become a far more dominant executive than he is today. Military personnel do have to listen to their commander-in-chief, but they’re also permitted to disobey orders that are blatantly unconstitutional. The federal courts, still not fully under Trump’s dominion, could support them. If Trump’s second administration is more efficient and dastardly than his first, it’s still a long way from imposing a personality cult on the entire federal bureaucracy and military. Xi and Putin are dictators because their nations do not have traditions of democracy or a free press. It is far easier for them to suppress dissent. If Trump wants that kind of control, he’ll need more time — or another country.
What’s hardest to imagine is Trump, well into his 80s, successfully governing the U.S. in 2029. This doesn’t mean that the flaws of our Republic aren’t ripe for exploitation or that smarter and younger people won’t rise to power in the future and attempt, on a much more terrifying level, to erode the democracy we have left. Americans should be prepared. In the meantime, Trump will flail about, sometimes meaning what he says and other times clearly not. Whether he’s joking or not right now — arguments can be made for either possibility — it’s worth entertaining his potential for greater lawbreaking. Trump has proved he has few limits.
