We have repeatedly seen Trump say something that sounds ridiculous, and his supporters say "that won't actually happen, and if it does I won't support it", and then he does it and his supporters support it. He has recently said he may try for another term as president, and confirmed "No, no I'm not joking".
If you don't take his threats seriously by now, and the willingness of the GOP to get behind whatever he wants, then you are not paying attention - it has happened over, and over, and over.
On NPR they ran a response quote from Ryan Zinke that was nominally against it, but if you read between the lines you can see them laying the foundation. It was something like “I draw a hard line at violating the constitution, that’s something I’ll never support. But also right now there are leftists and activist judges who think they can violate the constitution by taking power away from the executive”
He never directly spoke against a third term, just “violating the constitution”, and then named some enemies. It’s a long way off still, but you can see the groundwork being laid for something like “emergency measures to protect the constitution” if they decide that’s the way they want to go.
Wouldn’t he have to get on the ballot in all the swing states at least? What if some states refuse to let him run? I can’t see California registering him for example, but that wouldn’t really matter of course.
Only if he tries to get a 3rd term by a fair election. The more realistic way to it happening is by hijacking the electoral process. There are a number of ways to do this, such as by claiming there was fraud and thereby having the justification to modify how "electors" [0] should cast their vote. This is exactly what was tried in the 2020 election.
Really, it's just an "if enough people in power and in general go along with it, then it works" kind of thing. The current trend in the GOP is to whip and/or expel those who do not fully support Trump. What happens if half of the elected politicians, most of their constituents, and most of the appointed government officials, decide that Trump is staying in office? No one knows. The power of words on paper only goes as far as people let it.
> We have repeatedly seen Trump say something that sounds ridiculous, and his supporters say "that won't actually happen, and if it does I won't support it", and then he does it and his supporters support it.
Attempting to overturn an election, putting tariffs on the entire world, deporting legal US residents without due process, passing a record-breaking number of executive orders, ending birthright citizenship, removing a pillar of the free press from the White House press pool.
If you don't take his threats seriously by now, and the willingness of the GOP to get behind whatever he wants, then you are not paying attention - it has happened over, and over, and over.