Don’t Listen to Steve Bannon. Trump Will Be a Lame Duck, not a Third-Termer

Earlier this week, Steve Bannon—the former Trump aide and podcaster—told the New York Young Republican Club falsely that the president-elect could run for a third term in 2028, citing a claim from Trump’s legal adviser Mike Davis that the Constitution’s two-term limit, “doesn’t actually say consecutive.” A flood of headlines followed, suggesting Trump is preparing to trample the Constitution and cling to power.

Bannon, of course, is wrong. The 22nd Amendment is plain: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” There is no exception for non-consecutive terms. Twice means twice.

(Bannon did not float another far-fetched, if slightly less ludicrous, loophole argument in which Trump could become president after 2028 if he were first elected vice president, then ascended back to the presidency after a resignation. Brian Kalt, a Michigan State University law professor, articulated such a scheme over a decade ago. He argued that while the 12th Amendment says, “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States,” the 22nd Amendment’s prohibition on being “elected” three times wouldn’t necessarily stop an unelected ascension after two elected terms, no matter the intent of the 22nd Amendment. But for Trump and the GOP to try to exploit that dubious loophole would mean staying on the sidelines of the 2028 primary, winning the VP nod at the convention, then banking on winning an emergency Supreme Court case through a tortured reading of the Constitution, which would not be guaranteed.)

Why would Bannon make such a ludicrous claim? Perhaps he hopes that a Supreme Court willing to grant broad presidential immunity will run roughshod over secretaries of state who refuse to put an ineligible candidate on the ballot—in a case far more clear-cut than the Colorado case regarding Trump’s eligibility after the January 6 insurrection.

I suspect even Bannon doesn’t believe the Court would go that far.

But Bannon and other MAGA loyalists don’t want congressional Republicans treating Trump like a lame-duck president because lame-ducks are more readily disobeyed. The president’s political fate is no longer intertwined with those facing voters again. To obscure that reality, Bannon is trying to perpetuate the perception that Trump could be in power after January 20, 2029. Trump enforces loyalty through the fear he will endorse primary challengers. But if his endorsements are no longer potent, that weapon becomes dulled.

From Bannon’s perspective, worrying about Trump’s grip on the party may seem unwarranted. So far, on Capitol Hill, we’re not seeing much in the way of rebellion, even though Trump is stress-testing Senate Republicans to confirm manifestly unqualified cabinet nominees, including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Pete Hegseth.

However, we haven’t even begun the second term yet. Much of what Trump has in store—from higher tariffs to mass deportations to vaccine skepticism—could disrupt the economy and daily life of regular Americans. It could disrupt the Republican Party, which has become increasingly ideologically incoherent in this Age of Trump.

For example, if high tariffs reignite inflation and the public is outraged, will corporate-friendly conservatives from states with industries dependent on international trade blindly defend Trump tariffs on behalf of a president with sinking poll numbers who can’t run for re-election? Trump may be fond of the late 19th-century Republican Party, which was defined by protectionism (at the time, the corporate-friendly position). However, that is not a consensus view in the modern GOP. At a minimum, loyalty could not be presumed in such a scenario.

If a party is held together not by a set of core beliefs but by a cult of personality, that party is in trouble once the personality fades. Trump has proven himself to be a durable political figure with a base of slavish supporters. But he commands nothing like the broad support of Ronald Reagan, who four decades ago won back-to-back landslides and shifted the electorate’s ideological center of gravity.

Reagan weathered first-term setbacks—such as the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon—because most voters had given up on Great Society liberalism and believed low tax, deregulatory conservatism was producing better economic results.

Trump never had a mandate for a comparable policy vision, so in 2018 and 2020, voters recoiled from Trump’s disruptions and swung back toward the Democrats. In 2024, Trump’s victory was not sealed because swing voters embraced a particular ideological vision—just yesterday, a Quinnipiac poll found only 38 percent of voters support higher tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China, with 51 percent opposed—but because they presumed he could lower prices, someway, somehow.

If Bannon had confidence that Trump and congressional Republicans could cooperate to deliver popular policies, he wouldn’t be touting unconstitutional power grabs. He would confidently look forward to the moment four years from now when the MAGA torch gets passed to a new generation.

Democrats should not react to Bannon’s dictatorial musings catastrophizing about the end of democracy with defeatist resignation but with fresh zeal, confidently challenging an institutionally weak party cloaked by bullying bravado with a precarious hold on power.

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