Happy Monday and I hope you all had a blessed trans day of visibility Easter celebration.
It’s also April Fool’s Day, so happy anniversary to me as I start a fifth year of blogging. Thanks to all of you who read regularly, thanks to those of you who link to posts in Facebook and other social media, and thanks to those of you who comment.
Every now and then someone comes up with a novel idea that begs to be taken seriously. I came across an article at The American Conservative in which the author argues that we should abolish the Twenty-second Amendment. The text in question:
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once.
The argument of the article’s author, Peter Tonguette, is driven by the amazing rebound of Donald J. Trump, who “lost” reelection nearly four years ago. Only one other president in our nation’s history has been elected to two nonconsecutive terms: Grover Cleveland (1884 and 1892).
This is plainly unfair. Indeed, there has long been support for axing the Twenty-second Amendment due to the artificial limits it places on voter choice. Many popular presidents have agreed. In 1985, the Washington Post reported that Ronald Reagan supported repealing the amendment, saying in private remarks that the lame-duck label being applied to his second term left him feeling “handicapped.” In 2016, Barack Obama told David Axelrod that he was sure he would have coasted to a third term if such a thing were permissible: “I am confident in this vision, because I’m confident that if I had run again and articulated it, I think I could have mobilized a majority of the American people to rally behind it.”
The case of Donald Trump, however, makes an even more forceful ethical argument against the Twenty-second Amendment and for its repeal: If a man who once was president returns, after a series of years, to stand again for the office and proves so popular as to earn a second nonconsecutive term—as Trump seems bound to do—to deny him the right to run for a second consecutive term cuts against basic fair play. If, by 2028, voters feel Trump has done a poor job, they can pick another candidate; but if they feel he has delivered on his promises, why should they be denied the freedom to choose him once more?
I almost decided not to comment on this article because it’s an isolated topic that has no particular momentum. Sort of a nice idea, but there are more important things to be talking about.
But as I got ready to close the tab I thought, “it’s NOT a nice idea.”
It’s right there in the first paragraph of the section I quoted above. “In 2016, Barack Obama told David Axelrod that he was sure he would have coasted to a third term if such a thing were permissible.” That statement scares me. Can you imagine a third consecutive term of B. Hussein Obama himself in the White House? I mean, we’re living it right now (you do know that Obama is pulling the strings of this “administration”, right?), but the Lightbringer doesn’t have the bully pulpit from which to personally call his minions to action.
What if he got elected to a third term, then a fourth, like FDR?
We have to remember that there are always two sides to every idea that we think will give us some advantage. On the one hand, I’d like to see term limits for congresscritters. We could do away with the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters and AOC. But that also means we’d lose members like Ted Cruz, John Kennedy, Chip Roy, Marsha Blackburn and Mike Lee.
When Harry Reid changed an historic Senate rule to overcome filibusters, he and his party didn’t take seriously the long-term consequences.
In 2013, Reid invoked the “nuclear option,” a historic move that changed a long-standing Senate rule, dropping the number of votes needed to overcome a filibuster from 60 to a simple majority for executive appointments and most judicial nominations — a decision he justified because of trouble getting through court confirmations in the latter half of the Obama Administration.
At the time, then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and many other Republicans warned Reid that he would regret implementing the nuclear option.
“What goes around comes around. And someday they’re going to be in the minority,” Republican Sen. John Thune warned.
Well, it’s come around. Democrats are in the minority and many are pointing to Reid’s tweet as evidence of the folly of changing the Senate rules.
Reid’s rule change led to Trump getting his Supreme Court nominations through the Senate without any trouble. Thanks, Harry, for Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Coney Barrett.
Novel ideas that upset long-standing traditions or practices cut both ways. There may be some — like abolishing the Twenty-second Amendment — that merit consideration. For instance, I think we should revisit the Seventeenth Amendment, which approved direct elections of US Senators by the voting public instead of being appointed by the state legislatures, as originally intended by the Founders.
But always, Always, ALWAYS remember: there are two sides to every change in political processes and rules, and while it might be beneficial to conservatives now, it may be beneficial to liberals later.
Choose your fights carefully and consider the long-term consequences.