President for Life

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Not quite three months into Trump’s second term and there is talk – some of it emanating from Trump himself – about a third term. What that talk is really saying is that Trump may be considering a presidency for life. The kind that Idi Amin, the “president” of Uganda had.

Well, why not?

The hideous truth is we already have a de facto Idi Amin presidency and it preceded the inauguration of Trump (both of them). The president has not been the thing described in the Constitution for hundreds of years, at least since the presidency of John Adams – who was the second president and the first one to exercise powers he lacked under the Constitution by hounding his political enemies under the Alien and Sedition Acts. Even Jefferson – the president most revered by many libertarians – took it upon himself to make the Louisiana Purchase (not using his own funds, of course) which was something he knew had no constitutional authority to do. Most historian-hagiographers excuse what he did because they agree that Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana territory was a good thing. Just the same – in an ends-justify-the-means kind of way – that most Republicans express reverence for Abe Lincoln’s unconstitutional forced re-union of the Southern states during what was a “civil war” in the same way that the war in Korea was a “police action.”

More about that shortly.

Things got even more Idi Amin-like under Woodrow Wilson – who got us into the war to end all wars – and then Franklin Roosevelt, who set precedents expanded upon by Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. It didn’t end there, either. It was in fact just beginning. The Chimp really got things going and then some more so under Obama, who puppeteered the Scranton Sniffer for the first unofficial third term since FDR.

So why not an official one for Trump?

Put bluntly, what is going to stop him for “serving” for a third term – which in his case would amount to a de facto presidency-for-life since he’s already 78 and so would be 86 by the end of his prospective third term, if he manages to live that long.

The adherents of “Q” – who believe that “patriots are in charge” – would see this as a natural evolution of the “plan” they “trust.”

Trump could simply declare himself president-for-life, as Idi Amin did.

Would it not be of-a-piece with the way presidents have already gotten into the habit of issuing what amount to de facto laws via what are styled “executive orders”? Most recently, Trump’s orders regarding tariffs, which – under the Constitution – do not fall within his constitutional powers. It is Congress that has the constitutional authority to pass such legislation. It is the prerogative of the president to see that the laws (passed by Congress) are “faithfully executed.” This distinction stopped mattering as a practical matter decades ago when the presidents began executive-ordering things and thereby issuing laws by not calling them laws. It works very much in the same way that presidents have arrogated to themselves the power to start wars by not declaring them – the latter being the constitutional prerogative of the Congress, which ceded this prerogative to the president some 70 years ago, when the president decided that the United States would go to war in Korea but let’s not call it that.

The war in Vietnam was called that – even though Congress never declared war against North Vietnam. But people knew what was going on, regardless. The wars continue – no longer declared.

So what is going to stop Trump from declaring himself president for life, should he so decide? Would his followers object? Would Obama’s – had he declared himself president for life?

Caesar and his heirs understood. The forms – and the terms of the old republican were retained but the substance had changed. Augustus – the second Caesar – liked to refer to himself as merely the princeps, or “first citizen.” He was astute enough to understand that it had a better mouth feel than “caesar” (or imperator).

Trump may – or may not – deploy such niceties. But he is already planning his first Triumph – to be held in honor of his 79th birthday. It could be the first of many such.

All that’s needed is some kind of national emergency to justify a presidency-for-life.

One that may never end.