What did Steve Bannon tell The Economist about Trump and a third term?

What on earth is he talking about?

I’m not a Steve Bannon follower, but I recognize his strategic success during Trump’s first term. He’s an edgy, combative figure, someone who thrives on conflict and spectacle. His worldview is far removed from mine, yet there’s no denying that he remains a major force within the conservative movement, and that he’s worth listening to for what he reveals about its inner logic.

Recently, Bannon told The Economist that Donald Trump “will have a third term.” On its face, the claim sounds absurd. The Twenty-Second Amendment clearly bars any president from seeking a third term; they cannot appear on the ballot as a candidate for the presidency. And let’s face it: any effort to rewrite those rules would only arm the other side, since sweeping constitutional changes almost always end up benefiting whichever faction comes next.

Some partisans are now floating the notion that Trump might appear on the ticket in 2028 not as president but as vice president, a technical workaround meant to test the letter of the law rather than its spirit. The idea is that a loyal surrogate could run for president, win, and then step aside, allowing Trump to assume office through the line of succession. It sounds more like political fan fiction than constitutional design, but in the present climate of permanent campaigning and institutional fatigue, even fantasy can become strategy.

The constitutional barriers are formidable. The Twenty-Second Amendment declares, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” The Twelfth Amendment adds, “No person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.” The relationship between those clauses leaves little room for interpretation. If Trump is ineligible to serve as president, he is equally ineligible to serve as vice president. Legal scholars from across the ideological spectrum have said as much. The so-called “VP loophole” would almost certainly collapse under judicial scrutiny, and any attempt to use it would trigger a constitutional crisis of the first order.

But legality is almost beside the point. The value of such a notion lies not in its feasibility but in its symbolism. It reflects a worldview in which rules are obstacles to be navigated rather than principles to be honored. The “third-term” talk functions less as a plan than as a demonstration of will, a message to supporters that Trump’s movement cannot be constrained by the normal limits of law or time. It is the rhetoric of permanence disguised as procedural cleverness.

For my purposes, what matters is not the scheme itself but what it reveals: the refusal of power to yield to succession. The American system, like all systems, depends on the acceptance of loss: the idea that leadership is temporary and legitimacy comes from turnover. When a political generation no longer believes that, when it begins to treat institutions as extensions of personal destiny, democracy enters its decadent phase. Bannon’s prophecy of a “third term” is not only about Trump. It is about a class of leaders who cannot imagine a world after themselves.

As Reuters noted in May 2025, “Trump is barred from running for vice president because he is not eligible to be president. The Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads, ‘No person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.’” The law, in other words, has already rendered its verdict, but the myth of permanence continues to build momentum.

This myth of permanence lies at the heart of Boomer politics. The generation that once promised renewal has come to equate continuity with survival. In the mid-twentieth century, the Boomers inherited institutions designed for rotation and reform; over time, they transformed those systems into extensions of their own identity. Their genius was not for creating new structures but for endlessly extending the life of old ones. The political class that came of age under Reagan and Clinton learned to preserve itself through procedural cunning and narrative control. Now, even as the limits of biology and legitimacy close in, the instinct remains the same: to prolong, to rebrand, to outlast. The Trump movement, though framed as insurgent, draws its energy from that same generational impulse, which is the refusal to step aside. The “third-term” fantasy is simply the final expression of a political culture that cannot imagine succession, only continuation. And in the end, it does real damage to the system by eroding trust in constitutional limits while empowering its adversaries.

At best any and all talk of a “third-term” would have to be ideological. And that’s fine. Anything else if damaging.