Hacker News Reader

Comment by breadwinner | Hacker News Reader

From the interview:

> “There are methods which you could do it,” the president said when asked whether there are strategies on the table to allow him to seek another term. Welker mentioned a possible plan in which Vice President JD Vance would run in 2028 and then “pass the baton” to Trump. “Well, that’s one. But there are others too,” the president said, before refusing to elaborate.

The other method of course, is to not have an election at all! Why risk losing?

Anyone who thinks there is going to be a presidential election in 2028 hasn't been paying attention. There is no way Trump is going to that risk. He doesn't have to. All checks and balances have been suppressed already.

View on HN

> Welker mentioned a possible plan in which Vice President JD Vance would run in 2028 and then “pass the baton” to Trump

Curious how they’d do this. The Twelfth Amendment states that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States” [1].

Simplest would be to elect two randos, have the House choose Trump as Speaker [2], then have the randos resign [3].

[1] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-12/

[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-speaker-non-member-of-con...

[3] https://www.usa.gov/presidential-succession

Or declaring martial law via the insurrection act if you follow the argument at https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/insurr... . Should become apparent around April 20th if protests turn out to help Trump, providing an excuse.

What is special about April 20?

When the joint report recommending “whether to invoke the Insurrection Act.” is due. Haven't seen it reported elsewhere, so might just be nonsense.

It is the date that Trump has planned a fascist coup. Also the anniversary of Hitler's birthday.

I understand the impulse here, but I think it's important not to jump too far ahead to conclude that of course we're not going to have elections, because it actually just shifts the overton window to the point where now we're arguing about whether we should.

It also just jumps ahead of where we are in reality. You could just as easily say "of course Trump is going to execute his political enemies on the lawn of the White House, because all the checks and balances that would prevent that have been removed!" Yes, that could happen, just like us not having an election in 2028 could happen, but that's a massive change that would effectively be the end of the republic, the end of the constitution, and likely result in a full-blown civil war. We may get there, but we are nowhere close to that yet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com