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All true, and that doesn't even begin to touch the strategic issues. I don't think the GOP is going to clear the field for Vance or any other candidate, which means a competitive primary, which in turn means that some candidate would have to run as Trump's stooge, which might in and of itself cost that candidate the primary. Or Trump could run Don Jr. or someone as a crypto-stooge, but if they aren't clearing the primary for Vance there's no way in hell Vance or any other credible candidate would step aside so Don Jr. can run as a stand-in. And even if the GOP was on board with the whole scheme, it's still a huge risk. Once Trump is named as the vice presidential nominee, the whole eligibility thing is going to overshadow anything else about the election. There will also be a wave of litigation in every state to keep him off the ballot. What happens if this litigation is successful? If the entire selling point is "Trump will still be president", will voters be willing to back a stooge replacement on his own? If the outcome is that he isn't on the ballot in Pennsylvania but is everywhere else, do you find a replacement? What if the Supreme Court rules him ineligible at the worst possible moment? What if the GOP goes along with the scheme and Trump stays on the ballot in all states, but voters are so disgusted with the GOP that he loses in a landslide and the Democrats win large majorities in both houses? And sitting Republicans are primaried out next go around because of it?
There's been a lot of discussion on here in the past about why Trump always seems to outperform his poll numbers, and the most popular explanation is a "shy Tory" effect, but I think it has more to do with what I call the "Trump Constant". One of the big stories about Trump when he first entered politics was his appeal to disaffected people who normally wouldn't vote. Since they're on the margins of political discourse they don't participate in polls and they don't vote in elections unless Trump is involved, though they will vote Republican down ballot if asked to. These are the people who started flying Trump 2028 flags in January and don't really give a shit about the Constitution, or decorum, or any of the other things that Trump seems to have a disregard for.
I don't mean to toot my own horn, because this idea hadn't crystalized yet at the time, but I more or less predicted Ron Desantis's downfall when he was the toast of the "smart set" of the Republican party and of a lot of people on this board. If you remember, in early 2022 Trump's viability going forward was in question after the election nonsense and January 6, and Desantis was trying to portray himself as the future of the party. But there were still a ton of people doing MAGA. He was trying to walk a tightrope where he'd keep his distance from Trump without openly criticizing him. At the time I argued that this would only work if Trump declined to seek reelection, but that he painted himself into a corner because his unwillingness to cozy up to Trump and his image at a fighter meant that he couldn't just not run and yield the nomination. But if he ran he couldn't directly criticize Trump either, and I predicted that his campaign would turn into an incoherent mess, which is exactly what happened.
But when I made this argument to bona-fide Republicans, they dismissed it, and kept pushing the Desantis line. If the "Trump Constant" had been a theory at the time, the media and everyone else wouldn't have been so bullish on Trump, because it would have been clear that Jesus Christ himself wouldn't get the same boost Trump got, especially in a primary. He was so far ahead at the outset that he didn't even bother to debate, and he was so untouchable that none of his opponents save Christie would even dare criticize him. It was the stupidest primary election in history. The theory also explains why the GOP underperformed in 2022; by that time pollsters were making adjustments to account for the "shy Tory" effect or whatever, but they misapplied it since Trump wasn't on the ballot. Normal polling would have predicted the modest GOP pickups. It explains why Conor Lamb ended up beating "Trump before Trump" Rick Saccone (nice guy; I voted for him when he represented my district in the state house) in a District that was Trump +18. It explains why polling in 2016 and 2020 was so awful.
And it explains all this third term nonsense. Trump is convinced that the "Trump Constant" represents the majority of voters. In the past, Trump has convinced the GOP to go along with ideas that would have seemed unthinkable a few months prior. And thus far, he's proven that there are no political consequences for doing so. So it stands to reason that he might be willing to give this a try. But he has to remember that he's not invincible. He's never won as an incumbent, and for all the upheaval of 2020, it was nowhere near the level it would be if he was blatantly trying to circumvent the constitution to retain his hold on power. People in the GOP who would say that this is a bridge too far may ultimately backtrack if this nonsense becomes a reality, but Trump's only holds the office based on a margin of a few points in a few states. It doesn't take much for things to tip back in the other direction, and if he loses he will be done for good, and there's no way he is making a comeback at 86. I don't think he'll seriously pursue a third term, but I wouldn't entirely be surprised if he did.
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