When Donald Trump once again brought up the notion of occupying the Oval Office beyond the next four years, the crowd at his Saturday rally in Minden, Nevada, cheered. The party of Trump, who claims to want “small government” and believes it is entitled to numerous freedoms, real and imagined, showed great enthusiasm for another one of their president’s authoritarian ideas.
“Fifty-two days from now, we’re going to win Nevada, and we’re going to win four more years in the White House,” Trump said. “And then, after that, we’ll negotiate, right? Because we’re probably — based on the way we were treated — we’re probably entitled to another four after that.”
Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of remaining in office past the legally allowed term, should he win the 2020 election. In 2018, he praised Xi Jinping for doing away with term limits, and joked that he might look into doing the same thing.
“He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great,” said Trump. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.”
Has the continual cognitive dissonance caused Trump’s base to lose their hearing altogether? They fear “socialism” (which many of them conflate with Communism and confuse with dictatorship), yet they are fine with Trump’s admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, and Chinese president Xi Jinping. They chant, “Lock her up!” When Hillary Clinton’s name is mentioned, yet they ignore Trump’s many personal alliances with corrupt people, and his pardons of friends who have been convicted of crimes. They wave their flags and signs and shout “liberty!” Yet they are fine with Trump’s efforts to tamper with the 2020 election. They love the idea of a military parade in Trump’s honor, yet they were silent when he disparaged the military and called soldiers “suckers” and “losers.”
Trump has talked about defying the Constitution and extending his presidency so many times that it can no longer be taken lightly.
In June of 2019, Trump tweeted that his supporters might “demand that I stay longer,” meaning, beyond the next term should he win re-election.
More recently, in April of 2019, at a Wounded Warrior Project event, Trump told the crowd that he might remain in the White House “at least for 10 or 14 years.”
And at an August rally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Trump said, “We are going to win four more years. And then after that, we’ll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years.”
The crowd, in their lack of understanding of the U.S. Constitution, cheered.
The 22nd amendment of the Constitution, as Americans have been taught since elementary school, limits presidents to serving two terms, and does not allow for a “redo” if a president feels something was “not fair.” This is to prevent just such a scenario that Trump has proposed: That a U.S. president’s power not be held in check.
Nevertheless, their president is special to them. As Trump’s base have demonstrated repeatedly, they feel that he transcends the limits of U.S. law, the system of checks and balances, and possibly even Divine authority.
Donald Trump is slowly pulling the rug out from under them, and they either don’t notice, or they don’t care. Many of those outside of Trump’s base have observed that Trump’s base doesn’t care what vile or unethical things he says and does, primarily because he plays to their hatred of liberals. Trump fuels their fears, brings out their anger, and tells them that they are superior, and they love it. He knows that in exchange for that, they will be steadfastly loyal. They will be willing, in the most literal sense, as evidenced by their continued flouting of health guidelines as they crowd together, sans mask, at Trump’s political rallies, to die for him.
They tremble in fear at the notion of chaos, violence, and the loss of freedoms in “Biden’s America.” Yet, the party that claims to hold sacred the idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is just fine with a president who has made clear his aspirations to be an authoritarian leader who would (and already has, to some extent) trample on those very ideals.
President Trump will seek a ‘third term in office after Nov win’ |
The Sun [2020-09-14]
We are going to win Four More Years, after that we’ll negotiate for a few more | OAN (One America News) [2020-09-12]
