i think it isn't a trial run, it is just a natural progression of things when the power becomes more and more unchecked.
There is already 3rd term talk - Vance runs, Trump as VP on the ticket, Vance resigns after winning and voila. That way he can also do 4th and if medical science progresses well - 5th, etc.
Under Trump doctrine, IIRC, Vance could simply kill Trump as an official Presidential act, and the legal presumption would be that it's A-OK.
Actually, that's an interesting question: does the VP share that same presumption of immunity? If so, then Vance could just do the deed right now and get off Scott free.
I think that's unlikely, but also, Musk is much younger than Trump and planning the long game from his own point of view.
MAGA as a movement (and the people who prop it up) will need a successor. Musk knows trump will eventually go fully senile or have a stroke or just keel over dead from old age, and Vance is a good logical next person to step in and take the reigns.
> Vance runs, Trump as VP on the ticket, Vance resigns after winning and voila.
I dunno man; Vance is ambitious, but doesn't seem like such a sycophant. I'd say there'd be a non-negligible chance that instead of resigning, Vance has him "accidentally extradited" to an El Salvadorian prison.
> Vance has him "accidentally extradited" to an El Salvadorian prison.
why I don't agree on the prison part, yeah, IMHO the people "behind" trump see him as a manipulable but also volatile (i.e. problematic/bothersome/annoying/dangerous for them) tool to get and stay in power
Trump cannot run as VP as he's no longer a valid backup POTUS having already served two terms. VP candidates have to be "valid" (birth citizenship, age, not have served two terms).
The back door third term via VP trick only cleanly works for candidates before they've been elected twice.
Any attempt by Trump to run as VP will almost immediately be locked up in chaos.
It's another dead cat on table smoke 'n mirrors distraction play.
To quote another:
The reason Donald Trump is talking about this third term ridiculousness is very plain.
Second-term American presidents are lame ducks. That’s just how it is. And if they are unpopular lame ducks, after awhile their allies may start to look past them toward the future.
Trump is undoubtedly terrified of this—of becoming irrelevant before his term even ends, particularly once the race to succeed him heats up.
The way for him to keep the specter of lame-duckishness at bay is to tease the idea that just maybe, who knows, he just sorta might run for a third term.
That’s the play, and the media is being played.
The Twenty-second Amendment (Amendment XXII) to the United States Constitution limits the number of times a person can be elected to the office of President of the United States to two terms, and sets additional eligibility conditions for presidents who succeed to the unexpired terms of their predecessors.
The interaction with the twelfth has not been tested in any Supreme Court:
It has been argued that the 22nd Amendment and 12th Amendment bar any two-term president from later serving as vice president as well as from succeeding to the presidency from any point in the presidential line of succession.
Others contend that the original intent of the 12th Amendment concerns qualification for service (age, residence, and citizenship), while the 22nd Amendment concerns qualifications for election, and thus a former two-term president is still eligible to serve as vice president.
Neither amendment restricts the number of times someone can be elected to the vice presidency and then succeed to the presidency to serve out the balance of the term, although the person could be prohibited from running for election to an additional term.
>VP candidates have to be "valid" (birth citizenship, age, not have served two terms).
Nothing about 2 terms. The 12th says:
" But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."
One can see that "constitutionally ineligible" here can easily be only about things like being natural born citizen, age (ie. the things which apply even to the 1st term). At least when you have your own Supreme Court.
Haven't they already reinterpreted "two terms" to mean "two consecutive terms" anyway?
When you have your own Supreme Court it's easy. The next step will be to declare that two consecutive terms is actually just one long term, and so on. Every dictator does something like this - not always the exact thing, but something like it, some flimsy excuse and if everyone goes along with the excuse, they gain power.
>It's another dead cat on table smoke 'n mirrors distraction play.
I remember people thinking he'd never do something like try to overturn the 2020 election with fake electors. I mean it didn't work but he kind of gave it a shot.
i think it isn't a trial run, it is just a natural progression of things when the power becomes more and more unchecked.
There is already 3rd term talk - Vance runs, Trump as VP on the ticket, Vance resigns after winning and voila. That way he can also do 4th and if medical science progresses well - 5th, etc.