One thing MAGA won’t let Donald Trump do
It’s the red line for the red hats. They will let Donald Trump do just about anything but if he pushes his luck in one area they will push him out.
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What Donald Trump says, goes, for the Make America Great Again (MAGA) faithful.
Close the border, deport “the illegals,” get rid of so-called “gender ideology,” kick out Joe Biden and “fight, fight, fight”.
Tick, tick, tick for the party base gathered in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention.
But while Trump may be a hero to Republicans, even they have their limits when it comes to a controversial change he’s repeatedly mentioned.
“No, no, no,” Candice Bright from Arkansas told news.com.au.
“That’s not in the Constitution and that is not what George Washington ever intended”.
For the red-hatted die hards there is a red line that Trump cannot cross.
That is any attempt to have a third term in office.
As recently as May, Donald Trump appeared to float just that idea.
“You know, FDR (President Franklin D Roosevelt) 16 years – almost 16 years – he was four terms,” he told the National Rifle Association annual meeting.
“I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?”
‘Re-do of four years’
It’s by no means the first time Trump has mused on altering the 22nd amendment.
In 2018, he praised China’s Xi Jinping after Beijing abolished presidential term limits.
“President for life … I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someway.”
In 2019, Trump retweeted Jerry Falwell Jr who wrote on social media that the first two years of Trump’s term in office were a write-off due to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia collusion investigation.
The evangelist added Trump should therefore get two years added to his four year term. Like extra time at a football match.
Hours later, Trump tweeted that he had indeed had two years of his term “stolen”.
In 2020 he told voters on the campaign trial his first term didn’t count and there should be a “re-do of four years”.
But not everything Trump says can be taken on face value, his supporters say.
“He’s not serious,” Congressman Carlos Gimenez said of Trump continually extending his terms in office.
“For God’s sake, it’s against the Constitution”.
While Trump has spit-balled about extending his time as president, he has also said the exact opposite.
“I wouldn’t be in favour of it at all,” he said in April.
“I intend to serve four years and do a great job. And I want to bring our country back. I want to put it back on the right track”.
‘Think it would be great’
In Milwaukee, some Republicans were supportive of Trump sticking around.
“This coming term, and the following term if he’s up to it. I think that’d be great,” Texas resident Gregory Switzer told news.com.au.
But to do so would need a huge change to the US Constitution – and that isn’t easy.
The 22nd Amendment states that no one can serve more than two terms as president – either consecutively or separately.
Mr Trump has served one term so if he were to go back to the White House he’d have four more years and he’d be done.
Serving eight years was a convention since George Washington’s presidency in 1796. But it wasn’t a rule.
Mr Roosevelt won four presidencies in a row and served from 1933-1945. The only reason he didn’t crack two decades in the White House was because he died months after his fourth term began.
FDR’s longevity spooked US politicians who in 1947 created the 22nd Amendment to codify term limits.
But constitutions are not set in stone.
A March editorial in the American Conservative magazine said term limits were “plainly unfair” and an “arbitrary restraint on presidents who serve non-consecutive terms – and on democracy itself”.
In 2020, a referendum in Russia changed the constitution to extend presidential term limits. That means Vladimir Putin could stay in power until the mid-2030s.
High bar
A future president Trump could try and do the same if he became attached to the thought of staying put.
For the Constitution to be amended it would have to be approved by two thirds of votes in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Three quarters of state legislatures would then also have to agree to the change.
It’s a high bar.
“Well, not really,” Mr Switzer said. “I think we have three fourths”.
But just because you can change it doesn’t mean you should, he added.
“Those of us who are constitutionally minded don’t want to change it for one purpose without the plan to change it back the way it was,” he said.
“Because someone down the road is always going to take advantage.
“If we were to change it now for Trump – then someone that we don’t want to have (as a three term president), might turn us back into another Biden nation.
“So we’d have to change the constitution and the immediately change it back.”
A friend of Mr Switzer’s chimed in.
“No one is going to change the Constitution just to change it back.
“No one’s gonna waste their time,” the friend said.
‘Bible of our country’
Judy Eckert was attending Wisconsin from the neighbouring state of Illinois.
“We have a Constitution and we follow it,” Ms Eckert told news.com.au.
“Changing it is not gonna happen. That’s the bible of the country.”
For Ms Eckhart what was important wasn’t that Trump remained in office, but that Trumpism did
“I think if (Vice Presidential candidate) JD Vance does a good job, he’ll probably run. Otherwise we’ll have to wait and see.
“For me it will depend on if (a candidate after Trump) continues to follow the main agenda.
“It will take 12 years to fully accomplish all the goals. It has happened before in our history, so we’re gonna need to make it happen again.”
Trump may indeed just be idly wondering if he should serve more than two terms. But if he tries to, it may be the issue that finally loses him the MAGA crowd.
Originally published as One thing MAGA won’t let Donald Trump do
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