No. of Recommendations: 2
Trump wouldn’t throw out the entire constitution. He’d only throw out the two term limit. He’ll come up with some excuse to ignore it and run again. With his lackeys on the USSC, will they stop him? Even if they do, who will enforce their order if he decides to ignore it? Certainly not his DOJ. Some states would refuse to put him on the ballot. But there is a good chance that enough might put him on to win the electoral college.
Again, he runs into the problem that the federal government doesn't run elections. The states do. For this harebrained scheme to work, he'd need virtually every swing state Division of Elections/Secretary of State to be willing to put him on the primary ballots, despite the 22nd Amendment. It's unlikely beyond reason to think he'd be able to get them all - especially since many of the swing states he'd need to win (Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin in particular) have strong Democratic party presence in state government. Especially since there's lots of other Republicans that want to have a shot to run for President, so no guarantee that Trump gets ballot access in states like Florida or Texas, which are more solidly red but have elected officials (de Santis, Cruz) that are going to want to run in 2028. If either Florida or Texas keeps Trump off the ballot, he's done for.
And then there's the courts, which will certainly keep him off the ballot. Trump lost every 2020 case that made it to SCOTUS, so there's no reason to think they're going to just ignore the 22nd Amendment so he can be dictator. Even if you think they want more conservatives on the court, they didn't do it when the choice was clearly between Trump and a Democrat after the election was over - where ruling against Trump guaranteed a Democrat. They're even less likely to do it when it's Trump trying to ignore the 22nd, when the outcome is just a different GOP nominee.
And finally, even if all this came to pass, he's still likely to lose if he tries to run for a third term in violation of the 22nd Amendment (rather than trying to avoid an election) - which makes it even less likely that he'd get the cooperation of state officials (certain risk, uncertain reward). Trump won the tipping point state in 2016 (Wisconsin) by less than a percentage point - he's unlikely to win whatever 2024 tipping point state by much more than that, should he win. So in late 2027, when elections officials are being asked to put Trump on the ballot in violation of the Constitution and facing a running gun battle in the courts from both Democrats and some well-funded ambitious Republicans, that's a really tough sell. And Trump just isn't that good at cutting deals.
So, no. This is just not going to happen. Trump doesn't have the skills, talent, or connections in the military he would need in order to overcome the massive structural and institutional obstacles and convince all the people he would need. You'd need to be one of the shrewdest, fearless, and most politically adept and skilled operator the country has ever seen in order to do that - and none of those adjectives applies to Trump.
