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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.”
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 approval rating in 2012 was 46%. He recovered in 2016 as we came out of a mini-recession.
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.
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.
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.
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.