Worse Case Scenario, If Trump Wins

If it happens, we will bid him a permanent farewell at the end of four years

Today, Tuesday, is the last day of voting in the 2024 presidential election.

Supposedly, according to analysts like Paul Krugman, in columns like What if This Is Our Last Real Election?, doomsday for American democracy may be upon us in the event Trump returns to the White House.

This is a drift into fantasy, supercharged by fear and fear-mongering, because the worse case scenario of a Trump second term is precisely that: another wrenching, violent presidential term of tragic proportions exacting untold damage upon innocent people as well as upon our democratic norms, ideals, and institutions and upon our standing in the world.

My gut tells me Trump will lose this election, but, if he wins, to be sure, American democracy will survive the tempest. Whether voluntarily, or by forceful escort, Trump will leave the Oval Office in early 2029 after his four-year term.

We know this to be true—Trump will depart 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue at the end of a second term—because there are only two pathways for him to stay, and neither is remotely plausible, even in the wildest dreams of Trump, Rudy Giuliani, the Proud Boys, and other MAGA leaders.

To reiterate my core message, intended to calm at least one small corner of panic, in the unhappy scenario of a second Trump term, the transfer of power to new leadership will prevail in 2029, and the violent man will never again return to the White House.

The first pathway to a Trump overstay of the two-term limit on presidential service is a constitutional amendment reversing the 22nd Amendment, which states:

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.

Such a new amendment requires approval by two-thirds of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, followed by ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures or three-fourths of state ratification conventions.

Alternatively, two-thirds of state legislatures can ask Congress to call a constitutional convention to propose an amendment, again followed by ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures or three-fourths of state ratification conventions.

In the language of Article V of the Constitution:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments.

Should this prospect of a new constitutional amendment overturning the 22nd make us nervous? Of course not. Achieving any of these high bars (two-thirds of the House of Representatives and the Senate and/or three-fourths of state legislatures) in our nation today—divided as it is, within the next five years—is simply not within the realm of the possible.

Here again we drift into a reverie.

The other pathway to a Trump extended term in the Oval Office, beyond January 20, 2029, is a military coup, and, here again, to imagine that the armed forces of the United States will be sufficiently corrupted to collaborate with Trump in this pursuit—within the next five years—is a daydream.

When I explore this scenario, searching for ways and means to success, I am persuaded that it is more likely that a comet will strike the United States than the nation’s military will unite in a coup d'état behind Trump in 2028 or 2029.

Might Trump, at the end of a second term, declare a state of emergency or invoke the Insurrection Act in order to attempt a self-coup by fostering mayhem and violence, calling upon the Supreme Court to take his side when the military demurs?

Yes, of course. That is something Trump would do. But, again, the military brass and the Supreme Court will read the clear language of the 22nd Amendment, refusing to cooperate, and Trump’s attempted coup will fail.

The final area of catastrophizing about the imminent loss of American democracy, if Trump is re-elected, introduces the Supreme Court into the democracy-ending final act.

I understand that swells of people in my party, the Democratic Party, believe that the Supreme Court is deathly corrupt and that, yes, it would align with its supreme leader, Donald Trump, in such a coup.

But, don’t let your emotions run away with you. In this scenario, a corrupt Supreme Court will undergird Trump as an imperial president fast on the heels of Trump v. United States (July 1, 2024), and . . . what?

The nine justices will permit Trump to remain in office in direct contravention of the 22nd Amendment?

Here again individuals fearful of such a scenario are captured by exaggerated panic about the degree of the Supreme Court’s corruption and corruptibility.

Simply put, the worse case scenario of a Trump second term is a Trump second term—with all the certain horrors and devastations it will perpetuate against the Constitution, our democratic values and institutions, and innocent citizens and non-citizens.

But we are not going to lose our democracy in the 2020s.

Neither of Trump’s two pathways to remain in office after January 20, 2029, are viable in light of what we know about the Constitution, the amendments, the military, the Supreme Court, and the fighting spirit and integrity of the Democratic Party.

If, God forbid, Trump prevails in this election, he will take a sledgehammer to the Constitution, but it will endure.

He will leave the Oval Office in 2029—and not return.

Good riddance.