Talking About Politics: Would You Support a Bill That Would Allow a U.S. President to Serve for Life?
Today’s winner of Silliest Question on Quora is….
Short and sweet version: No.
Short and not-so-sweet version: Hell, no.
Longer, informative, and hopefully educational version;
No, I would not support a bill that would allow anyone, regardless of party affiliation, to serve as President of the United States for more than the two-term limit set down in the Twenty-Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In case you have never read that amendment, which ironically was proposed in 1947 and ratified in 1951 at a time when there was a Democratic President and a Republican-controlled Congress, states:
1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President, when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.
Before the Twenty-Second Amendment was first put before the states 72 years ago, there were no term limits for Presidents; there was a tradition in which most of our Chief Executives adhered to George Washington’s self-imposed two-term stint, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for a third and fourth term in the 1940 and 1944 elections. Both times, Republicans in and out of Congress objected and even made FDR’s unprecedented “extra” runs for the White House a campaign issue. But since in 1940 the European War and Hitler’s conquests posed a clear and present danger to the nation, the electorate went with FDR because they hoped he’d navigate the treacherous waters of the times with an eye to keeping America safe without having to send our troops to fight overseas. And, of course, in 1944, the nation was a belligerent in World War II (and Election Day that year took place five months after the D-Day invasion of France and amidst other major battles in Europe and the Pacific.)
I must point out two important factors as to why this is important for you to know:
FDR was not in good health by the time he won his fourth term in late 1944. I’m not going to go into details, but if you look at film clips of the man taken in 1933 - the year that he was first inaugurated - and 1945, you’ll notice how old, frail, and tired our 32nd President looks in ‘45.
And, of course, President Roosevelt only lived a few months past his fourth Inauguration; he died of a cerebral hemorrhage at his vacation house in Warm Springs, GA on April 12, 1945. He was 63 years old.
So, when the Twenty-Second Amendment was first proposed, concern for the health and longevity of a President was one of the excu- I mean, reasons cited by its backers.
A second (and perhaps more relevant) reason was that Republicans tried four times to beat FDR between 1932 and 1944…and lost four times. Considering how hated Roosevelt was by many GOP voters (some even refused to refer to him by name, instead calling him “That Man in the White House”) and even the more conservative wing of the Democratic Party, after his death there was a mad scramble to formally add “Presidential term limits” to the highest law of the land.
So, not only would the Republican Party (the only one which would benefit from President-for-life terms) have to do a 180-degree turn in its philosophy, but it would also have two detrimental effects: further erosion of democracy in the U.S. and the beginning of one-man dictatorship rule in a country that’s ill-suited for such a thing.
Suggesting such a fundamental change to a system that has worked, more or less, since it took effect after the 1952 election is not only impractical but goes against the nature of what it means to be American.
As for the one guy that is probably interested in such a thing….well, President Donald Trump is not exactly a young man anymore. He is almost 72.5 years old, and because he was already 70 when he was elected in 2016, is the oldest person ever elected to the Presidency. His mental acuity would decline faster and his health would deteriorate sharply as the stresses of leading a divided country catch up with him. Presidents - of both parties - often age faster than the average person due to the huge weight of the demands of the office, and since Trump is already the oldest President ever elected, he’s not going to somehow get younger.
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