By Don Terry and Ben Emos | Monday, August 18, 2025 | 6 min read
Donald Trump has always cloaked his ambitions in spectacle. At first, the quips about staying beyond two terms sounded like taunts, the sort of provocation meant to rile opponents and thrill supporters. But the longer he has held power, the harder it is to dismiss. What once looked like bluster is starting to resemble a plan. The signals aren’t subtle, and they point toward something unsettling: Trump is preparing the ground for a third term—or more.
The Oval Office itself tells part of the story. It doesn’t just look different; it looks like him. Gold plating, mirrored polish, and even a ballroom—yes, a ballroom—have transformed the seat of American governance into a stage for endless self-congratulation. Leaders planning to leave do not build palaces. They build legacies. This is not legacy-building. This is court-building.
His reach extends beyond the décor. Cryptocurrency, for example, isn’t just a financial tool to him; it’s a loyalty test. It binds his supporters’ wealth to his political project, creating a parallel economy vulnerable to regulation the moment someone else takes office. Why hand over something so fragile when a successor could dismantle it overnight? The logic is clear: if he wants to preserve it, he cannot afford to leave.
The same logic applies to the perks of power—a plane tied to Qatar, lavish gifts, networks of favors. Any of these could be seized, scrutinized, or undone with a single executive order. Trump knows this better than anyone; he’s made executive orders into weapons. Every luxury, every renovation, every business tether to his presidency is safe only as long as he stays in charge.
But the quest for permanence isn’t just about wealth. It’s about survival. Trump carries the weight of investigations, impeachments, and scandals that could resurface the moment he steps aside. Hollowing out institutions, bending norms, and stacking the deck aren’t simply acts of vanity—they are acts of self-protection. Leaving office would mean exposure. Staying in office means safety.
That drive for self-preservation explains moves that might otherwise look like ordinary politics. Reports that he pressured the Texas governor to create five new congressional seats aren’t just a footnote in redistricting—they are a warning. This isn’t gerrymandering as usual. It’s an attempt to build structural safeguards for his hold on power, to tilt representation in his favor before voters even get to the polls.
Texas is only one battlefield. Missouri, Indiana, Florida—others are lining up. Even California has whispered about creating more Democratic districts as a counterstrike, though its independent commission makes that unlikely. The point isn’t whether each plan succeeds; it’s that the arms race has already begun.
Layer onto that the effort to discredit the census, and you see how deep this runs. If the official population count can be dismissed as flawed or “inflated with immigrants,” then every map, every seat, every district can be called illegitimate. That chaos opens the door to election delays, invalidated results, and a political system where nothing is trusted except Trump’s word.
Voting rights are under renewed assault. Mail-in ballots—used by millions of Americans, including Trump himself—are being cast as fraudulent. Proposals to outlaw them nationwide would disproportionately burden urban, diverse communities, the very places his movement aims to weaken. And the idea of deploying ICE or even the National Guard near polling sites? That is not election security. It is intimidation.
Here’s the danger: democracy doesn’t have to be canceled outright to be dismantled. Ballot boxes can remain, campaigns can run, and debates can rage. But if the rules are rigged and the machinery tilted, the outcome is predetermined. What looks like democracy becomes a hollow performance.
Legal scholars are sounding alarms. Courts have grown more willing to let state legislatures set the rules of elections, citing the “independent state legislature” theory. If that continues, blatant manipulation could stand unchecked. The guardrails designed to keep politics fair are being taken apart piece by piece.
The 2026 midterms may be the stress test. If maps are redrawn at will, if the census is undermined, if voting access is gutted while intimidation rises, then the result will not be another hard-fought election. It will be the codification of minority rule under the guise of democracy.
For Trump, this isn’t just about winning—it’s about survival. Losing power would mean facing prosecutors, investigations, and history’s judgment. He knows it, and that fear fuels every move. Leaders who fear losing power can be reckless. Leaders who fear facing justice are far more dangerous.
The alarms are flashing now. He has already tested the boundaries of the Constitution and found little resistance. Each time he pushes, the system bends. Jokes about a third term aren’t jokes at all; they are probes, experiments, signals to see who cheers and who stays silent. And too often, silence wins.
History offers a grim reminder: rulers who gild their offices, surround themselves with courts and ballrooms, build parallel financial systems, and rewrite the rules of representation do not step aside willingly. They invent excuses, conjure emergencies, and blur the line between themselves and the state. Trump has studied that playbook and seems determined to follow it.
The Constitution draws the line at two terms. But Trump has always thrived in gray areas where laws are vague and norms do the heavy lifting. That is where the danger lies. Waiting for him to say the quiet part out loud is waiting too long.
The gold-plated Oval Office is not decoration. It is a warning.
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