this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2025
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Thanks for more insight.
I've seen some AOC memes but didn't really notice her beyond that. Again, European viewpoint. She doesn't really make it into European news.
I read something about right-wingers trying to claim that the 22nd amendment only says that nobody should be elected twice, so if Trump gets into office without getting elected, everything is fine. So their plan is to get someone else elected in Trump's stead and that person should then just appoint Trump as the new president, because according to them, that's apparently possible. And with their surpreme pile of garbage that they call a court, that might just work.
Scary times.
Fortunately, that doesn't work either, there are several issues with that logic.
We are still (nominally) a type of Democracy. That means our 'leaders' must be elected. The 22nd only addresses term limits, the constitution itself spells out how the President comes into power in the first place, and that is by being elected. Nowhere is the President granted the power to appoint someone else to the office. The 25th amendment lays out who is to be president in the event that the current one is unwilling/unable to perform their duties.
Still, we are talking about if he at least wants to have the appearance of legitimacy. He's certainly argued that he can 'creatively interpret' the constitution to suit his agenda. For example, despite the 14th amendment stating that "...all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." the Trump administration has tried to claim that 'all people' do not include people who's parents were 'illegal immigrants', despite the Supreme Court precedent that it most certainly does include them.
I do have some faith that Americans would not stand for that though. That would be the final straw for many of us. If I am still around and something like that happens, I know it will be the final straw for me. I was born in a 'free' country, and I have no issues dying to help ensure it remains that way.
That being said there is nothing really stopping him from being the 'de facto' president in the case one of his lackeys gets elected and is willing to let him do so. For example if Vance were elected he could allow Trump to attend meetings and press conferences and speak on his behalf. He could be appointed an 'advisor' and Vance could follow his 'advice' every time. Hell he could allow Trump to sleep in his bed and use his toothbrush if he wanted.
Hopefully the DNC will pull it's fucking corporate boot licking head out of its ass and put up a candidate that's actually worth a damn for the next election, but that's about as likely as Trump stepping down gracefully.
It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. I wish I believed in God, I would ask you to pray for us.
I researched a little to figure out what they are on about, and there seem to be three main options, depending on how much of a semblance of a democracy they want to keep up.
The simplest yet weakest way is what you described: A shadow president. Worked for Putin, why should it not work for Trump. The downside: If the puppet president develops a mind of his own, things can turn ugly(er).
The next option is to have Trump become vice presidet (the presidential term limit doesn't seem to apply to VP), then have the president resign and make Trump president instead, claiming that the 22nd only limits being elected twice, which might be ok with the letter of the law, but only an idiot or a tyrant would interpret it that way.
The third option would be to have the president use the appointment clause, which is very vague about to what exact offices the president can appoint someone. It doesn't explicitly state that the president can't appoint someone else to the office of president. But again, only an idiot or a tyrant would interpret it that way.
That might have worked, if not for the 12th Amendment, which has this clause "But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."
That may end up being where we run into issues. I have seen no evidence that the majority in the SCOTUS has a problem being either. And since they have lifetime appointments they are under no pressure whatsoever to do a good job. One of the main problems with our constitution.
It does actually, the Appointments Clause appears at Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution and states:
"... and [the President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law"
"Herein" in this case refers to the Constitution itself, and it definitely does 'provide' for the "appointment" of the President.
I'm not at all surprised that their evil plot revolves around them not understanding the constitution, many Republicans like to pretend they love the constitution when in reality most don't understand it, and the ones that do think they can simply ignore or change the parts that they don't like.
Basically Trump only really has 2 options if he wants to remain in power. Have the constitution amended to remove the term limits established by the 22nd (which again isn't likely) or do something illegal and have the SCOTUS back him up, which is sadly a little more likely.
I almost hope he tries something like that and that there are enough decent people in the Military who would actually uphold their oaths to the constitution to make such a coup impossible to sustain. That might wake people up enough to realize how they came to installing a dictator, and maybe move enough people Left that we can actually do some things to fix our broken system. It would be great if we would get rid of the Republican and Democratic parties and/or at the very least get rid of our atrocious "First past the post" voting system (along with the Electoral College) which is where a lot of the problems in our country can be traced back to.
Better yet I wouldn't mind if we scrapped the whole "Liberal Democracy" idea altogether and wrote a new Constitution that treats all people as if they are equals and not slaves to the rich and powerful, but I wont hold my breath hoping for that one, we need to educate people first. We have been the victims of hundreds of years of propaganda (which really ramped up in the 20th century), and you can't reverse that damage overnight.