Is Trump legally qualified to be a presidential candidate?

[RZehr]

Ya, in a year or so we will probably have both incorrigibility AND senility. No matter which one wins.

Both Biden and Trump will be lame ducks if they win this November. Neither one will be running again in 2028 because whoever wins will be in their 2nd term.

So I predict that neither will get any sort of "honeymoon" period and the national press and Congress will shift in a matter of months to handicapping and positioning for the 2028 election.

Within months and certainly by mid-2025 the press will be obsessing over which young Dems and GOPers are positioning themselves to win in 2028. We already have Nikki Haley but there will be a bunch more. And on the Dem side it is completely wide-open. I don't think Harris will be viewed as the presumptive front-runner but there will be a whole bunch of Dem Governors and Senators tossing their hats in the ring, or very coyly giving non-denial answers about whether they are running. So all the focus will be shifting away from Biden/Trump and what comes next.

Likewise, I don't see either Biden or Trump having a complete trifecta in Congress to pass any major legislation. The House will be a tossup and the Senate will be close to 50/50 which will prevent passage of any major legislation due to the filibuster. So about all Congress is likely to get done is kick the can down the road with budget rollovers and continuing resolutions to keep things open. But no major changes. Especially since Senators on both sides of the aisle will be gearing up for a 2028 run and therefore will be posturing for primary votes and not particularly interested in solving problems in a bipartisan way that could be used against them in 2028.

So basically we will be in "caretaker" mode at the Federal level and just biding time until the 2028 campaign starts in earnest. Absent any major national or international emergency that shakes things up like another COVID or big events like Katrina or another war.

So how much does it matter who wins? In my mind, not nearly as much as most people think. Neither Biden nor Trump are going to be in a position to make much in the way of lasting changes. That requires Congress. Trump is using lots of ridiculous rhetoric about the things he is going to do, but most of what he is shouting about requires either legislation or is flatly illegal and will be shot down by the courts. For example, using nationalizing the National Guard to go door-to-door to apprehend illegal immigrants. Not going to happen. Nor is he going escalate deportations without major new investments in immigration courts which Congress is unwilling to do. I don't see Democrats jumping up to fix things for Trump when Republicans are currently refusing to do it for Biden.

So pencil 2028 on your calendars. That will be the watershed election that sets the tone for the future of the country for the next decade and beyond.

Of course what do I know? The next presidential term could be hugely consequential. But I doubt it. Presidents really don't have that much power. At least not the power to make any lasting changes on their own. And not much usually happens in presidential 2nd terms.

About the part of your post that I underlined:

Presidents may not really have that much power to impact border policy? That may explain Trumps lack of success. It appears to me that the real power to impact border policy might be held in the clammy grip of ex-Presidents. For reference see how he torpedoed the recent border legislation that the Republicans negotiated with the sitting President. Ex-Presidents, not Presidents are the ones with power.

[barnhart]

Rzehr, you do a good job of pointing out the difference between soft and hard power. Technically the hard power (actual legislation) lies in Congress and ex presidents have no more power than any other citizen. Soft power (influence) is a different thing.

[Ken]

Of course what do I know? The next presidential term could be hugely consequential. But I doubt it. Presidents really don't have that much power. At least not the power to make any lasting changes on their own. And not much usually happens in presidential 2nd terms.

About the part of your post that I underlined:

Presidents may not really have that much power to impact border policy? That may explain Trumps lack of success. It appears to me that the real power to impact border policy might be held in the clammy grip of ex-Presidents. For reference see how he torpedoed the recent border legislation that the Republicans negotiated with the sitting President. Ex-Presidents, not Presidents are the ones with power.

Trump is a case in point. He came into office and tried to make a variety of changes to immigration and border policy. To very little permanent effect. We can go through them one by one:

Muslim Ban During his first days in office he implemented his famous Muslim Ban by executive order. After a first couple of weeks it was eventually tied up in court and basically set aside. The Trump Administration fought with the appeals courts and came up with several revisions until the Supreme Court eventually ruled in his favor about a year or two later at which point he had already abandoned the policy. I'm not super solid on the timeline so feel free to look it up as I'm too lazy. But I think my summary is more or less correct.

Increased ICE detentions and deportations. ICE under Trump did ramp up more immigration raids across the country and wound up detaining more people for deportation. But they didn't actually accomplish increased deportations because of immigration court backlogs. So they just spend an enormous amount of money building private prisons to house immigration detainees Federal expense. More illegal immigrants have been deported under Biden than Trump by a long shot. From the Cato Institute: https://www.cato.org/blog/new-data-show ... rump-biden This is from the Washington Post last month: https://www.verifythis.com/article/news ... d4f235d07e



Family Separation Policy: This was kind of a stealth policy that was rolled out by the Trump Administration early on without any real public notice until it finally started getting a lot of negative news coverage and attention. The policy generated endless legal challenges and lawsuits, was revised several times by the Trump Administration and then eventually abandoned after restraining orders were issued by various courts and there was some kind of consent decree by which DHS agreed to cease the practice.

Title 42 Border Closures: These were the COVID related border restrictions that were legal as long as the nation was in a declared public health emergency. There was lots of back and forth and most of the hostility to the law was related to vaccination requirements for incoming immigrants and travelers. This policy rolled into the early years of the Biden Administration but was ended when the declaration of Public Heath Emergency was rescinded. It was effective during the height of COVID. But was never going to be any sort of permanent change to US immigration policy.

Build the Wall and get Mexico to pay for it: After obsessing about his wall for four years, Trump accomplished the following:

• The land border with Mexico is 1,954 miles long. In 4 years, Trump managed to build his wall along 455 miles of the border or only 23% of the southern border. However only 47 miles of that was actually new wall where none had existed before. It was mostly just upgrade and replacement of existing border fencing and walls.
• Mexico has yet to pay a single dime for any of Trump's wall building
• After Congress failed to provide funding, Trump tried to reallocate existing funds that were earmarked for improving military bases and that pretty much fell through
• In 2018 he got McCarthy to introduce The Build the Wall, Enforce the Law Act of 2018 in the House of Representatives but it stalled in the Senate after Trump refused to endorse a deal with Democrats to fund the wall in exchange for passing the Dream Act. Trump threw a temper tantrum and tried to shut down his own government over wall funding but caved when Congress refused to go along

Basically after all that sound and fury, Trump actually didn't accomplish much in the way of immigration and didn't leave any lasting changes because he never managed to pass any new immigration laws in Congress. The numbers in the last year of his administration only look good due to the Title 42 COVID restrictions which were unprecedented and worldwide. Many countries were locked down much more rigorously than the US.

So yes, I'm skeptical that Trump will accomplish much of anything when it comes to immigration should he get re-elected this fall. Since he has torpedoed the bipartisan immigration bill that was in Congress this past winter I doubt Democrats will be amenable to going along with any new Trump-proposed border legislation or funding. And why should they? Why reward Trump for his bad behavior? At least not without extracting major concessions that Trump and GOP in Congress will likely go for (such as passing the Dream Act). So that will once again leave him with only executive actions at his disposal. And I see no reason to believe they will be any more effective than his past efforts to change immigration policy without Congress. He can say a lot of things but actually doing them is a different story.

Presidential power is really the art of persuasion. And effective change requires an amenable Congress. Trump will have neither if he wins in 2024. And neither will Biden for that matter. So I frankly don't see either of them getting much done in terms of policy changes during the next term.

And that is just for Trump's signature policy of immigration. I expect he will get even less done in other areas of policy such as revising environmental laws, repealing/replacing Obamacare, restructuring the Federal Government, Changing Federal education policy, or anything else he mentions at random. Because all of that is going to require Congress. And Trump is a notoriously bad legislator. His one and only signature accomplishment was his tax cuts in 2017 during the first year of his first administration. He got little else done his first term, even when the GOP held both houses of Congress from 2017-2018. I think he has even less chance of making any significant changes as an instant lame duck should he win again. Since he won't have much leverage at all against Congress this time around. And many of the prominent Senators will quickly be shifting to campaign mode for 2028 and will be less inclined to try and get things done during a lame duck Trump or Biden presidency.

That is how I see things based on having worked in government for about 15 years and following it pretty closely for decades.

The one wild card is some enormous national emergency. Like some new major war, or another national emergency on the same order as COVID. Then all bets are off. Major crises are when things actually get done. Like the Great Depression, WW2, Civil War, etc.

[Grace]

Muslim Ban During his first days in office he implemented his famous Muslim Ban by executive order.

Trump had a “travel ban”, not a Muslim Ban, on countries that presented a risk of terrorism and travel to the United States. It is true that seven of the terrorist risk nations are Muslim. But his travel weren’t about religion, but about protecting the nation from terrorists. Later Trump added North Korea and Venezuela, who aren’t Muslim but also presented a terrorism risk to the U.S.

The Concept of a travel ban is nothing new, when certain countries pose a risk to the nation.

Back in September of 1972 a Palestinian group attacked Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics. Hours after the attacks, Nixon ordered a travel ban on some Middle East Countries.

With the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979, President Carter canceled visas issued to Iranians and monitored those already in the country.

After 9-11 President Bush used force against Afghanistan when Taliban leaders refused to turn in Osama bin Laden, but in 2002 it also initiated a registration system targeting Muslim immigrants as potential terrorists.

[Josh]

Under Biden we seem to have a crime wave of illegals into the country and committing murders (or worse). This seems to be a good argument on its own for shutting the border down and not letting more violent criminals into the country.

[Ken]

Under Biden we seem to have a crime wave of illegals into the country and committing murders (or worse). This seems to be a good argument on its own for shutting the border down and not letting more violent criminals into the country.

Only in your imagination.

In reality, violent crime is actually falling in most of the country and immigrants on average commit less crime than Americans. So you are safer around the average immigrant than you are around the average American.

That doesn't mean our immigration system isn't broken. Clearly it is. Although Republicans seem to prefer letting things fester rather than fixing them. But much of the anti-immigrant hysteria is really just scapegoating for the dislocations caused by productivity gains.

[Josh]

“Productivity gains” which don’t result in better wages for workers yet mysteriously need more unskilled immigrants to work for low wages.

It is a myth that “crime is down”. Crime is a lot worse than it was circa 2018.

[Ken]

Muslim Ban During his first days in office he implemented his famous Muslim Ban by executive order.

Trump had a “travel ban”, not a Muslim Ban, on countries that presented a risk of terrorism and travel to the United States. It is true that seven of the terrorist risk nations are Muslim. But his travel weren’t about religion, but about protecting the nation from terrorists. Later Trump added North Korea and Venezuela, who aren’t Muslim but also presented a terrorism risk to the U.S.

You don't have to try to whitewash things. Trump didn't. It was Trump himself and his top aids who made it about religion and labeled the policy a "Muslim Ban". Back in 2017, Trump was all over the news talking about his "Muslim Ban". For example, this news article from his first week in office in January 2017: https://wapo.st/3T8as9q And yes, it really was a Muslim ban. Adding Venezuela and North Korea didn't change that. People don't travel from North Korea to the US anyway because it is a closed society. https://wapo.st/3Txf3n2

And it is just another example of Trump's failed attempts at immigration policy. After repeated losses in court they kept dialing back the policy until a neutered version finally passed Supreme Court muster. And then COVID basically made it irrelevant.

My larger point which you missed is that no president including Trump can accomplish much in they way of policy changes absent action by Congress. So those who think an instant lame-duck Trump is going to change things if he wins are bound to be disappointed. His track record of working with Congress is extremely poor.

[Josh]

Covid showed it is indeed possible to fix the border problem. You just have to do it.

[Ken]

“Productivity gains” which don’t result in better wages for workers yet mysteriously need more unskilled immigrants to work for low wages.

It is a myth that “crime is down”. Crime is a lot worse than it was circa 2018.

There was a spike in crime spanning both administrations during COVID when NEWSFLASH, the border was shut down. But it has been falling since then while at the same time immigration has been increasing. So there is actually an inverse relationship between crime and immigration if you think there is some connection between the two.

You also misunderstand the issue of productivity which is more severe in rural areas. Productivity (which is largely driven by technology) simply means that one worker can do more work than was the case previously. Much of the great plains are emptying out due to productivity gains in agriculture. And parts of Appalachia are emptying out due to productivity gains in mining. Far less people are required to farm or mine than was the case in previous generations. And in the case of mining, technological gains in energy production have made coal extraction obsolete. With less people, the small towns and businesses that they previously supported decline as well. People are quick to blame immigrants for their declining prospects when it is really productivity gains driven by technology.