The 22nd Amendment

[Lonestarblue]

22. I don't believe this is solely to play the libs.

Trump has given the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 leaders free reign to do whatever they want to change the federal government into one solely for wealthy white people and catering to the beliefs of the religious right. He is their useful puppet, and I think they are searching for ways to extend his presidency with a thin veneer of legality. There are a lot of right-wing extremist lawyers in that group who are willing to ignore the law or bend it into pretzels to achieve their goals.

The 20th Amendment specifies when presidents take office and leave. “Section 1: The terms of the President and the Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.”

The assumption is that a national election has been held, but Congress has the power to change election dates. If we assume that Republicans hold the majorities in both houses in 2028, they could pass a law changing the presidential election year to 2029. Would it hold up in court? Maybe not, but that might depend on who Trump appoints to the Supreme Court to replace Thomas and Alito. He will force them out to replace them with much younger extremists.

The assumption that Republicans could still hold both houses of Congress may seem far-fetched, but Trump winning all swing states in 2024 was equally far-fetched and we still do not know whether votes were rigged.

Trump will be 82 at the end of his term, not too old to be prosecuted for old and new crimes. He will do anything to avoid that. There is no legal basis for using martial law for delaying an election, but simply ignoring the law would not be unusual for this bunch.