From TPM Reader JF …
Good post on the indefensible media coverage of the Third Term shiny object being offered up by the President (see also, invading Greenland, etc.)
There is an additional point worth emphasizing. The reason Donald Trump is talking about this third term ridiculousness is very plain. Second-term American presidents are lame ducks. That’s just how it is. And if they are unpopular lame ducks, after awhile their allies may start to look past them toward the future. Trump is undoubtedly terrified of this—of becoming irrelevant before his term even ends, particularly once the race to succeed him heats up. The way for him to keep the specter of lame-duckishness at bay is to tease the idea that just maybe, who knows, he just sorta might run for a third term. That’s the play, and the media is being played.
Finally, I think this prospect of being a lame duck is much harder for Trump that it is for a “normal” politician because in general, politicians care about their party or movement and they anoint successors (often their VP) to carry the banner after them. A two-term president’s success and failure after the second term is partly measured by whether their successor is elected too. But is Donald Trump capable mentally and emotionally of anointing a successor and imagining life after Trump? Who are we kidding?
