In an article published by The American Conservative on March 26, MAGA writer Peter Tonguette proposed abolishing the U.S. Constitution's 22nd Amendment so that Donald Trump could run for a third term in 2028 if he wins this year's presidential election.
Tonguette attacked the 22nd Amendment as anti-democratic, saying that U.S. voters should be able to keep Trump in the White House as long as they want.
But according to The New Republic's Matt Ford, proponents of giving Trump a third term are not motivated by a love of democracy, but by a desire to see Trump in power "indefinitely."
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In his own article, published April 2, Ford explains, "Tonguette argued that Trump's victory in the GOP primary contest this year shows that voters still support him — and that they should be allowed to do so indefinitely…. I do not doubt that Trump would run for a third term if he could."
Some MAGA Republicans have openly expressed their disdain for democracy, including white nationalist Nick Fuentes and conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, who called for the "end of democracy" at the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February. But Ford notes that Tonguette "frames his argument in democratic terms" — which the New Republic staff writer finds problematic in light of the fact that "American voters have…. never truly elected Donald Trump to be their president."
"Hillary Clinton received three million more votes than Trump in 2016," Ford points out. "Joe Biden received seven million more votes in 2020. Trump only made it into the White House because a structural flaw in the Constitution occasionally gives the presidency to someone who comes in second place. Once bereft of the Electoral College's unique advantages, Trump then attempted to retain office by fomenting an insurrection — a move that should have tabled the notion that he was somehow a 'popular' figure in the democratic sense indefinitely."
The New Republic journalist adds, "None of this math figures into Tonguette’s calculus."
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Ford observes that Tonguette "does not actually describe how the 22nd Amendment should be overcome."
"I do not disagree that the Constitution's two-term limit is antidemocratic, and I am not necessarily against repealing it," Ford writes. "But I feel comfortable saying that repealing the 22nd Amendment is not what Tonguette truly wants. What he is really hoping for is simply that his family's favorite TV show stays on the air, no matter how many other people and families will suffer for it — or, perhaps, because they will."
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Matt Ford's full article for The New Republic is available at this link.
