President Donald J. Trump made headlines — again — by floating the idea of staying in power beyond the constitutionally allowed two terms. When asked by reporters aboard Air Force One if he would seek a third term, he smirked: “I would love to do it.”
His former advisor, Steve Bannon, told British publication The Economist that “Trump is going to be president in 2028, and people ought to just get accommodated with that.”
To many Americans, this might sound like a joke or empty political trolling. After all, the U.S. Constitution is clear: no president may serve more than two terms, thanks to the 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951 after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected four times.
But to me, a Nicaraguan immigrant and journalist, it doesn’t sound like a joke at all. It sounds like a pattern. It sounds like something I’ve lived through before.
In Nicaragua, we used to believe our constitution was strong, too.
In the early 2000s, two political rivals in my country — Daniel Ortega, leader of the leftist Sandinista party, and Arnoldo Alemán, leader of the conservative Liberal Constitutionalist Party — made a secretive backroom agreement.
Known in Nicaragua as El Pacto (The Pact), their deal was designed to benefit both of them: Alemán would be protected from criminal prosecution for corruption, and Ortega would gain a path back to power after years of losing elections.
How? By changing the rules.
The pact lowered the percentage of votes a candidate needed to win the presidency from 45 percent to just 35 percent, as long as they held a 5-point lead over the next candidate. This small change opened the door for Ortega to win with a divided opposition, which he did in 2006.
But El Pacto didn’t stop there.
Over time, Ortega and Alemán’s parties worked together to take control of Nicaragua’s most important institutions: the courts, the national assembly, and the electoral council. Judges were appointed not for their independence, but for their loyalty. Election officials weren’t there to count votes, they were there to protect the power of those already in office.
The result? Today, Ortega rules as an authoritarian. The press is censored, opposition leaders are jailed, and the electoral system is little more than theater. A country once considered a fragile democracy is now a dictatorship.
This is why I’m not laughing when Trump suggests a third term. I worry because I’ve seen what it looks like when leaders test the limits of power, then erase them.
In a Guardian column, Moira Donegan made a chilling observation: “What is and is not constitutional is determined, in effect, by Trump loyalists on the court and their bad-faith enablers.”
The Supreme Court, now dominated by justices appointed by Trump, has already allowed him to dismantle parts of the federal government, including the Department of Education, an agency created by Congress.
According to the Constitution, only Congress can eliminate such a department. But that didn’t stop the court from siding with Trump.
So if you think the 22nd Amendment — the one that limits presidents to two terms — will save American democracy, you might want to think again. Because just like Ortega, Trump has people around him who are willing to “reinterpret” the law in his favor.
Some have even floated legal loopholes, such as placing Trump on the ballot as a vice president, with the expectation that the elected president would resign, handing Trump power again. But this would violate the 12th Amendment, which states that no one ineligible to be president, as Trump is after two terms, per the 22nd Amendment, can serve as vice president either.
In short, if you can’t be president, you can’t be in line to become one. Still, we’re living in a moment when legal norms are being rewritten in real time.
And this isn’t the only part of the Constitution under attack. Trump’s administration has already tried to undo birthright citizenship: the right of anyone born in the U.S. to be a citizen, guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court allowed the executive order to take effect while legal challenges are still pending.
It’s the same strategy Ortega used: stack the courts, rewrite the rules, and count on the public to be too tired or divided to stop it.
Some people have told me: “This is America, that could never happen here.” But that’s what many Nicaraguans thought, too. We believed institutions would hold. We believed the law would stop those who tried to stay in power too long. But laws only work when they are enforced and when the people in charge respect them.
What worries me most is not Trump himself, but the growing number of Americans who have stopped caring. The ones who are too exhausted, too disillusioned, or too convinced that none of this matters. That’s how democracies die. Not always with violence, but with silence.
I didn’t come to the United States because it was perfect. I came because it promised something better than the system I left behind. But promises only hold if people protect them. And right now, that promise is being tested.
