The Constitution Is Not A Game
Remember the rights we have. Don’t normalize the abnormal.
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Maybe the Most American of Our Rights
We’re going to talk a little today about a key American right – one that has been with us from the start of our country’s founding and reinforced in what historian Eric Foner calls The Second Founding after the end of the Civil War.
There are two key phrases in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, ensuring that no person is deprived of their life, their liberty, or their property without ensuring that all legal rules and principles are applied and adhered to, so the legal rights that are owed to a person are respected.
Fifth Amendment
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Our Constitution states clearly, as a principle of our American self-governance, that no person (that means anyone in this country regardless of any citizenship, residency, or visa status) can be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
We believe that our country should be about the rule of law, and that means every person here is treated fairly, justly, and the law is guaranteed to apply equally to all people (or at least that’s what we strive for).
If there is one side of our politics that views a group as not worthy of these guarantees, then it means that this side is not on the side of America and what it stands for.
These amendments to our Constitution – one that’s part of the Bill of Rights, and the other that brought the nation back together after the Civil War – is what America explicitly stands for. Rights for all people – citizen, immigrant, visa holder, visitor. Even those that violate the law and should be held accountable – they have these rights as well, to make sure, through our system of justice, that we punish innocent people in our zeal to punish the truly guilty.
We’re in a constitutional crisis because we’re trying to understand whether we still believe this as a country. Not because Donald Trump is President, but instead because there are people who enable or draw their power from him, and most importantly, there are millions of people who support what he’s doing.
Keeping the spirit alive of what we stand for as a country, this is a(nother) great podcast interview with Ken Burns. You should listen – I share the sentiment of one of the comments from the podcast hosts: [2]
“Listening to Ken Burns talk about American History is like listening to @barstoolgruden talk about football and we LOVE IT”
They Think the Constitution Is Just A Game
This is an interview of Steve Bannon by The Economist, declaring that Trump will get a third term as President, even though the Twenty-Second Amendment clearly states that “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.”
Bannon references a “plan” for having Trump serve as President again, which as a reminder, he’ll be 82 years old at the end of his current term and he’s already showing signs of cognitive decline.
Bannon is very careful in the clip not to say that Trump will be “elected” President – he says he “is going to be President in ’28 and people just ought to get accommodated with that.” [3]
The conniving plan could entail Republicans controlling the House of Representatives coming out of the 2028 elections, and then electing Trump Speaker, since one does not have to be a member of the House to serve as Speaker. If Trump acolytes manage to select a Republican ticket sufficiently loyal to Trump, and then somehow win the national presidential election, this ticket would be sworn in as President and Vice President. Then, after that, this newly elected presidential ticket would resign and under the Presidential Succession Act, Speaker Trump would become President.
Trump defenders would argue that Trump was then never “elected” to a third term, which is what the Twenty-Second Amendment prohibits.
Or… Trump would be on the presidential ticket as Vice President, since the Twenty-Second Amendment prohibits a person from being elected “to the office of the President” more than twice but they would argue it doesn’t say anything about Vice President. Under the scenario, a newly-elected President resigns, and Trump becomes President again under the same Presidential Succession Act.
The Amendment was approved and ratified in 1951 after Franklin Roosevelt had been elected President for four straight terms. This excerpt from the Reagan Presidential Library website gives a good overview of what drove the effort to establish presidential term limits: [4]
The decision for George Washington – the First President of the United States – to voluntarily step down from office after two terms, established an unofficial tradition for future presidents to serve for no longer than two terms. For one-hundred and fifty years, this system seemed to sustain itself with little to no trouble. But it was the uniquely chaotic circumstances of the 20th century that would raise greater questions regarding term limits.
Franklin D. Roosevelt – the Thirty-second President of the United States – had been elected in 1932 in response to the Great Depression. After serving two full terms, he ran for president again for the 1940 Presidential Election. The Second World War had started a year earlier, and the looming threat of the United States being pulled into the conflict in some way or another remained a major concern for the American public, who were still recovering from the previous decade’s economic downturn as well as the long-term scars left behind by the previous “Great War” in Europe. Inspired by Roosevelt’s leadership in response to the Great Depression, he won the election, led the country through four years of the war, was re-elected in 1944, and served as president until his death in April 1945. After the war ended in 1945, concerns loomed in Congress regarding a possible risk of executive overreach being brought about by Roosevelt being president for almost thirteen years. He had used his executive power to produce several federal work programs in response to the Great Depression, and had served as Commander-in-Chief to a massive American military force that had spread far across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. While these uses of executive power were justified by some to be in light of the world-affecting circumstances of the 1930s and 1940s, doing so in the prospective time of post-war peace was seen by some as concerning.
However, these efforts to keep Trump in office is a full-throated rejection of the Constitution. We shouldn’t normalize this – this is not normal American politics; it’s an anti-constitutional grasp to hold power, just like the January 6 insurrection.
Go Dodgers
On a lighter note, the Los Angeles Dodgers took Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday, tying the series against the Toronto Blue Jays at one game a piece. It’s now a best-of-five series with Los Angeles now holding the home field advantage starting Monday. Games 3, 4, and 5 are in Los Angeles, and Shohei Ohtani is starting Game 4. Go Blue!
Down Under
I’m currently in Sydney this week on business, but I figured I’d share a couple of pics from Sydney Harbor.
In a week where the East Wing of the White House was demolished, despite Trump’s promise to preserve it, [5] a Netflix series about a murder mystery in the White House is worth highlighting this week.
The Residence is an American mystery comedy drama television series created by Paul William Davies for Netflix. Inspired by The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House by Kate Andersen Brower, the series revolves around a fictional murder scandal involving the staff of the White House. Produced by Shonda Rhimes’s Shondaland, the series premiered on March 20, 2025.
Set "upstairs, downstairs, and backstairs" in the White House, Cordelia Cupp (played by Uzo Aduba, aka Crazy Eyes from Orange Is the New Black), an eccentric detective, arrives on the premises in order to solve a murder that occurred during a state dinner for the Australian prime minister. During the investigation, interpersonal conflicts among the personnel of the residence begin to unfold. [6]
The Residence was nominated for four Emmy awards, including a nomination for Uzo Aduba in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series category – she was phenomenal in this series… [7]
And with my current business travels this week, the Australian connection is an interesting one.
GIF Game
Notes and Sources
[1] “Constitution of the United States,” Constitution Annotated, United States Congress, retrieved October 26, 2025, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/
[2] thedropapinshow [@thedropapinshow], Instagram, October 9, 2025, https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPkDnMJET3a
[3] Mediaite [@mediaite], Threads, October 24, 2025, https://www.threads.com/@mediaite/post/DQLdMj3jEr-?xmt=AQF0SOK22v1kRXrKKq7cl26WJMtOEMSpWcovF3ZNHSc2KA&slof=1
[4] “Constitutional Amendments – Amendment 22 – “Term Limits for the Presidency,” Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, National Archives, retrieved October 26, 2025, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/constitutional-amendments-amendment-22-term-limits-presidency
[5] Maya Yang, “East Wing of White House reduced to rubble as part of Trump’s ballroom construction,” The Guardian, October 24, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/24/white-house-demolition-east-wing-trump-ballroom
[6] “The Residence (TV Series),” Wikipedia, retrieved October 26, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Residence_(TV_series)
[7] “The Residence: Awards,” IMDb, retrieved October 26, 2025, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8740614/awards
Decisions with Mic Farris
Seek Truth. Honor Differences.
