SO YOU’RE TELLING ME THERE’S A CHANCE
For the last three years President Donald J. Trump has bantered with supporters and journalists about defying the Twenty-second Amendment and staying on past his two-term limit to run again in 2024. He’s even mused out loud before his faithful that he might seek reelection beyond 2024. Was he serious? Just joking, he said. Messing with the media. But when China “appointed” Xi Jinping leader for life, Trump said, “I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.” Still just joking?
In Pennsylvania in May 0f 2019, while addressing a cheering crowd of supporters, he said “We ran one time and we’re 1-and-0—but it was for the big one. Now we’re going to have a second time. And we’re going to have another one. And then we’ll drive them crazy.” Does that mean a third term?
Last June, in his endless war with “Fake News,” he was at it again:
A poll should be done on which is the more dishonest and deceitful newspaper, the Failing New York Times or the Amazon (lobbyist) Washington Post! They are both a disgrace to our Country, the Enemy of the People, but I just can’t seem to figure out which is worse? The good news is that at the end of 6 years, after America has been made GREAT again and I leave the beautiful White House (do you think the people would demand that I stay longer? [emphasis mine] KEEP AMERICA GREAT), both of these horrible papers will quickly go out of business & be forever gone!
Hate to break it to you, sir. Odds favor both papers surviving your presidency. As for “people” demanding you return for an encore performance, I’d say fuhgeddaboudit. Check the numbers. Math-minded Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog has you down by more than 11 points in the job approval category as of June 2; the highly regarded Monmouth University Poll has you approval rating at minus 13. That’s a mighty high wall to scale this year, 2020.
Still, hope (or is it delusion?) springs eternal in the Trumpian mind. And, to be sure, he’s got one tough autocrat in his corner. That would be none other than Vladimir Putin, now celebrating his twentieth year in charge of Russia, eclipsing the tenure of any Czar. As his mentor and master, Vlad takes a paternal interest in his mentally disadvantaged protégé. He said last year that he doesn’t think Trump should be hampered by the term-limit amendment: “(This clause) troubles some of our political analysts and public figures. Well, maybe it could be removed.”
Yeah, thanks Vlad for your two rubles of advice. But judging by your puppet’s physical and mental state these days, he’ll be hard-pressed to make it to November.