Donald Trump flirted with the idea of being president for three terms – a clear violation of the US constitution – during a bombastic speech for the National Rifle Association in which he vowed to reverse gun safety measures green-lighted during the Biden administration.
“You know, FDR 16 years – almost 16 years – he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?” The ex-president and GOP presidential frontrunner said to the organization’s annual convention in Dallas, prompting some in the crowd to yell “three!” Politico reported.
Trump has floated a third term in past comments, even mentioning a prolonged presidency while campaigning in 2020. He has also tried distancing himself from this idea, telling Time magazine in April: “I wouldn’t be in favor of it at all. I intend to serve four years and do a great job.”
The same guy who unilaterally banned bump stocks with an executive order being hosted by the NRA shows how much the NRA actually cares about the second amendment.
Are you claiming the “take the guns first” guy isn’t a strong 2A supporter? Say it isn’t so!
Amazing how little Republicans care when the person saying that has an R next to their name
Bump stocks and all other focuses on rate of fire are more or less a sacrificial lamb. It provides a strong distinction between “Heh, stupid fucking loser thinking ‘assault rifles’ are actually a thing” and “semi-automatic versions of rifles specifically designed for and used by military forces”
When the reality is that basically every military strong discourages the use of full auto by anyone whose job is not to carry a machine gun of some form. But, because that AR-15 you bought at Walmart doesn’t have full auto, it isn’t a military weapon.
And because it is our god given right to carry an m249 everywhere we go, it is a horrible insult to the gun nuts of the world to lose their full auto capabilities so we should all feel warm and fuzzy and stop trying to stop kids from getting shot.
That’s because full auto rifles*, are typically seen as wasting limited ammunition. A modern military unit isn’t likely to encounter a bunched together group of 30-50 soft targets where a full auto rifle would be most effective…unlike a mass shooter indiscriminately targeting a crowded concert.
*Rifles, not machine guns. I’m well aware of the utility of squad machine gunners, talking guns, etc.
First off: modern militaries DO get some nice mass executions a lot more often than one would expect. Well worth doing some reading up on that.
Second: Automatic fire is still horrible for that. If your bullets have a high degree of penetration then you are, generally mortally, wounding multiple civilians per shot and are better at aimed shots at clusters of women and children. Or your bullets don’t have a high degree of penetration and you mostly just light up one or two kindergartners whose corpses take up most of the shots. At which point you are, again, better off at firing off a bunch of snap shots.
Third: The actual reason militaries have automatic weapons is for situations where aiming is difficult or less important. Machine gunners at the squad level are expected to fire very short controlled bursts (otpimally single shots) to actually suppress a target when trying to “keep some heads down” so that the maneuver group can flank. Or they are engaging at significantly longer ranges (which is why machine guns often have a larger caliber round than the rifles) where a short burst increases the likelihood of hitting a target. And while it is mostly out of favor, many infantry rifles had burst fire capability or even simultaneous fire capability (either with two barrels or a ridiculously high rate of fire burst) to increase the likelihood of infantry hitting a target by spending more on ammo than training (before realizing it significantly increases the cost of the weapons AND requires more training so that the high schoolers can maintain their weapons in the field). But modern optics, and a decade or two of being the only people with NVGs, rendered that obsolete.
Yeah bullshit, these assholes don’t give a fuck about your rights or mine, they care about their power, money, and influence.
“If the Biden regime gets four more years, they are coming for your guns,” Trump railed.
Really pulling out the “greatest hits” with this piece here. He’s got nothing else.
‘Member when Trump said he’d take guns without due process? Like he literally said that.
That’s a GOP golden oldie. I’ve heard that same bs line since the early 90s at least.
And it’s a great line for the gun lobby. In a lot of ways, the NRA and gun manufacturers would prefer a Biden victory because gun sales spike when Democratic presidents get elected, as gun-nuts are certain every time it happens that this is the time, for real, that they’re “coming for our guns.” In other words, people panic buy rifles because they think a federal ban is coming. But the reality is that Dems will never push through sweeping anti-gun legislation because there are so many pro-2FA democrats out there that doing so would be ludicrously difficult and monumentally unpopular.
“regime”
He really used that word? Wow…
I said the same thing. Heavy eye roll.
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This is partly just blowback from everyone agreeing to use different vocabulary for governments we like vs governments we don’t. We never should have tolerated the blatant propaganda of the US having an “administration” while our adversaries have “regimes”.
There are lots of other examples of journalists using loaded vocabulary this way. Most of them escape me at the moment but I can think of a few, like “freedom fighters” vs “insurgents” or “terrorists”, and “police action” or “peacekeeping force” vs “occupation” or “invasion”.
3, then 4, then 5… Just like putin.
“Let me tell you, folks, it’s so true. Just like Putin, right? It’s unbelievable. We start with 3, then we go to 4, and then 5. It’s all about strength, and nobody knows strength like me. We’re talking about a progression, a strategy. Just like Putin does, so smart. You have to move step by step, building power. That’s how you win, that’s how you get things done. Trust me, it works.”
Trump in one of his rallies (probably)
Without that “(probably)” I would have assumed this WAS at a rally…
And then his children will run for office, and only because he’s too old now.
His kids lack a great deal of his rizz. DT Jr is too weak, Eric is dumb as dishwater, and Ivanka has the girl cooties that sink every woman Republican candidate for the Presidency.
So Eric it is, then. Just like his dad.
Hey now, things aren’t that bad. No way Trump lives long enough for that.
I support a life-term prisondency for him.
Ok hear me out…
Trump wants to be a dictator, sure. He was a terrible president and it would be a disaster if he was reelected.
Now that you know my position, listen to what he said at the NRA convention. He wasn’t saying ‘hey maybe I’ll serve 3 terms’… what he was saying was ‘if I get elected in 2024 then would that be two terms or three terms? Because we all know I was elected to a second term back in 2020 and so even though Biden is acting president, I am in my second term now, so a win in 2024 is a third term.’
The man is an idiot and rambled incoherently throughout the NRA speech. He reiterated his usual batch of racist xenophobic statements and bragged about his uncle at MIT… he is a one trick pony and there is plenty to poke fun at.
Would he tout the idea of a third term for himself? Sure! Is that what he did in this case, not precisely.
Oh you’re right. I guess I forgot one could be that stupid
Exactly. Of course, by putting forth the belief that 2020-2024 was his second term, he should just bow out since he has also said he would not want to challenge the 22nd amendment.
The only time we elected a president more than twice, it was a Socialist, and he was so popular that we had to pass a law after he was elected a fourth time so it didn’t happen again.
Edit: fixed!
The only time we elected a president 3 times, it was a Socialist
FDR was elected to four terms. He died 85 days into his fourth.
and he was so popular that we had to pass a law to keep him from being elected a fourth time.
The 22nd amendment wasn’t even drafted until after FDR was dead, and wasn’t ratified until 1951. And the language of the amendment specifically exempts the president at the time of ratification. The 22nd Amendment wouldn’t have stopped Truman from running again, let alone his predecessor.
Oops, fixed!
Lol someone down voted you for admitting a mistake and fixing it.
You got downvoted too, lol.
People in Lemmy can be odd. I’ve noticed that, once in a while, I may pick up a stan. After a possibly terse exchange, I’ll see all comments/posts have, like, as single downvote for a few days.
FDR was a Social Democrat not a Democratic Socialist. Similar but very different
FDR was not a socialist and the New Deal was a compromise from the existing capitalist power structure in order to harness and then diffuse the growing socialist energy in the country. It’s a huge reason the New Deal focused so much on highway expansion instead of public transportation.
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If he gets even one we are doomed
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He already had one, dumbass.
We’re doomed, dumbass.
Doooooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmeedd
Now now Bender…
In the last one, he still had fear of consequences tempering his actions. If he gets in again, his fear of consequences will be from losing power, not what acts he commits to secure it or siphon benefits from.
It’s pretty obvious that person meant one more, dumbass.
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What a doozie of a way to start a sentence…
So let’s see here, Trump is 77 years old, but will be 78 at the time of election. Let’s just add eight years and we get 86… yep he’s angling for president for life.
Yep, and his brain will be mush, so who knows who’d really be running the show.
Will be? It already is.
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Nah, rfk was able to sustain it for a little bit. In Trump’s brain it would file refugee status and emmigrate.
Not before he has it deported.
It already is mush.
He’s angling for hereditary dictatorship.
But Biden is too old already. SMH. Maybe he’ll get sucked out of a faulty window in his plane. Edit: that was a /s people.
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Yes sorry
Republicans hate the constitution, so… this checks out.
noted fascist is a fascist, more at 5
Guys I’m starting to think that this Trump fellow might not like democracy
Lock him the fuck up already
that’s how dictators dictate
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22nd amendment was passed as a direct response to FDR’s four terms. But surely you knew that and are just being daft.
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Not the first time he’s done this.
That is just another article about the exact same incident…
My mistake. Meant to post this link.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/18/politics/donald-trump-third-term-2024/index.html
Ah, yes, much better. And also more unambiguously directly a call for a third real term, whereas this time it’s plausible he could be claiming that 2020-2024 was his ‘second term’ already.
To be honest I think Clinton or Obama would have been president for life if two term limits weren’t imposed.
I’m too young to chime in on Clinton, but I can see it with Obama for sure.
FDR is why there’s an amendment prohibiting it. He’s speaking openly of violating the constitution. Hey “patriots”, isn’t that supposed to be a thing that makes you mad?
Don’t know about for life, but a pretty long tenure like Angela Merkle, yeah I could see that
Obama was lucky to win his second term. His approval rating was already underwater and only Romney’s own unlikeability saved him.
Either way, this was a man who had functionally checked out back in 2014. He didn’t want a third term.
That’s some easily disprovable bullshit: Obama’s final presidential approval rating in 2017 was 59%, which is pretty good. So much for “checked out in 2014”. Trump and Bush w had 34%, Clinton had the highest ever with 66%.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/final-presidential-job-approval-ratings
Obama’s final presidential approval rating in 2017 was 59%
Obama’s approval rating in 2012 was 46%. He recovered in 2016 as we came out of a mini-recession.
So much for “checked out in 2014”.
He spent less time campaigning for Hillary Clinton than Biden or Sanders and gave up fighting for his judicial nominees back in January. He’s been on permanent vacation ever since.
The Obama campaign did seem to flounder early on in the 2012 election against Romney, it just wasn’t able to reproduce the magic of 2008. I recall Obama performing badly against Romney in the first two debates, just did not seem at his best. It wasn’t actually until the VP debates after Joe Biden’s performance against Paul Ryan that the Obama campaign got reinvigorated.
And Trump is even more unlikable than Romney. No one has really been running terribly likeable candidates lately.
And Trump is even more unlikable than Romney
Not according to the last two election vote-counts. That’s been a problem for the GOP for a while. Anyone they throw up against Trump is too much of a corporate stuffed shirt or hick blowhard to top Trump’s NYC Diva Energy. He’s got a cult of personality in a way guys like DeSantis and Cruz and Romney could only dream of.
It cuts both ways, though. Sure, it gets his fans out in record numbers, but it also gets people who hate him voting in record numbers, too. I don’t think we’d have had that 2020 turnout for Joe Biden without Trump.
Sure, it gets his fans out in record numbers, but it also gets people who hate him voting in record numbers, too.
When Bidencrats are concentrated in a few large states and Trumpies are diffused across a larger number of pivotal swing states, the electoral math favors the Republicans. And as Biden’s own approval ratings crumble, people who would normally turn out to hate-vote against Trump are demoralized.
I don’t think we’d have had that 2020 turnout for Joe Biden without Trump.
Trump won more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. And Biden only clinched the nomination by 40,000 votes across three swing states (all three of which he’s currently trailing Trump in today). He was running a tighter margin than Hillary enjoyed in 2016.
Combine this with Republicans ramping up disenfranchisement efforts, fascist policing of minority communities, a chronically struggling economy, and a President whose declining health inhibits his ability to campaign, and I seriously doubt Biden will see 2020 turnout a second time. Meanwhile, Trump is once again poised to break GOP turnout records.
Yeah, he barely lost to Joe Biden. Biden vs Obama popularity isn’t even a contest.
Obama was marginally more popular than Biden back in 2016, when Biden was significantly more popular than Hillary.
But in 2024, Idk. Neither of them have aged well.
