USA President term limits

Uncle@lemmy.ca to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 102 points –

im 100% canadian, I dont live in the US and wondering about your system.

so as i understand your political system, a president can only hold office 2 terms. in Trumps case, he served once already, does that mean he can only serve one more, or is the clock reset and he gets a shot at 8 years?

77

You are viewing a single comment

It's 2 total terms. There's no "resetting the clock" in that rule. Any attempt to remain in power for a third term would be blatantly unconstitutional.

That said, there's a real concern that he's likely to try anyway, and a non-zero chance that he'd succeed if he manages to fill enough of the government and military with people more loyal to him than to the constitution.

It's worth mentioning that this has only been the case since the 1950's. FDR was elected four times and died during his final term, after which term limits were added to the constitution in response.

It's also worth adding, though, that the convention of only running for at most two terms had existed pretty much since the establishment of the republic (until FDR broke it), when Washington and Jefferson each chose not to run for third terms

Yup, Washington was wildly popular at the time. He easily could have stayed in office indefinitely, as long as nothing horrible happened. But his reasoning was that they had just rebelled against a monarchy, and he didn’t intend to start another one.