Andrew Sullivan chronicles some of our president’s abuses of power for his own personal gain. If you’re unfamiliar with what this is about, or refuse to believe that Trump isn’t your savior doing everything for you rather than him, feel free to read the sordid details in Sullivan’s post. My hope is that it’s not necessary as you’re already well aware of it. All of it. All of it increasing monthly, weekly, daily, as it pops into Trump’s head that there is someone out there he wants to crush and will happily abuse the power of his office to impose suffering on his enemies or to gain his advantage.

But then, it’s only for another three and half years, right? After all, his bluff notwithstanding, his two terms as president is all he gets, and it’s not as if he can or would try to violate the Constitution. Right? Right?!?

The question, it seems to me, is how Trump might respond to a real SCOTUS setback, or to a House he doesn’t totally control. And the answer to that we already know: he will assault the court’s legitimacy, threaten the Justices with mob violence, refuse to end the tariffs, and — of course! — claim the 2026 elections are rigged. The same, I think, applies to his term limits. He will attempt to defy them along the lines of his beloved thug-tyrant, Bukele. And if that open assault on a clear Constitutional amendment doesn’t fly, which may be a stretch even for MAGA vandals, it still won’t be over.

Up to now, the Supreme Court and occasionally his appointees to circuit courts of appeal have given him plausible deniability that he’s running roughshod over the law and Constitution. He’s surrounded himself with incompetent sycophants, such that the voices of reason and maturity from his first term that squelched his dopiest impulses are no longer heard. No longer is there a White House counsel telling the president that no, he can’t do that. Indeed, he takes the counsel of such luminaries as Stephen Miller and Laura Loomer.

Since the Republican Congress has demonstrated fealty to their lord, no matter how absurd his actions and choices, the last guardrail, the judicial branch, is trying desperately to avoid the facial confrontation that gave rise to President Jackson’s snark to Chief Justice Marshall. But what will happen when even his adored SCOTUS compatriots say “No, you cannot run for a third term.” He’s gone. The nightmare is over. No one could possibly believe that two terms means two consecutive terms, and only a blithering idiot would believe he gets another term. Right? Right?!?

If a Democrat wins in 2028, Trump will call the election rigged and illegitimate, and will re-stage 2020 on behalf of a successor — with the full weight of the federal government behind him. If a Republican wins, Trump will remain POTUS the way Putin stayed president after making Medvedev “president” in 2008. Trump is an instinctual tyrant, and once those characters have tasted raw, arbitrary power, as he has, they can never let go. He must either have a family member succeed him or a puppet. Don Jr or JD — Trump’s Medvedev.

For those unfamiliar with Medvedev, after Putin served two terms as president of Russia, he handed the position to Dmitry Medvedev, and took the subservient position of Prime Minister. Except Putin still ran the country, and then had the Russian Constitution amended to allow him to serve as president again, and he and Medvedev changed places as Putin again assumed the presidency to be the official, instead of unofficial, ruler of Russia.

But let’s assume Trump, for all his bluster, can’t manage to pull off the lie that he’s not constitutionally barred from a third term, and instead runs his son, Junior, or his lackey, Vance, as his successor. He’s already got billions in his PAC, even though he can’t run again, and the money empowers him to remain the ruler of the Republicans, as does his willingness to lie, cheat and steal to wreak havoc on anyone who gets in his way.

To the credulous MAGA faithful, his word is gospel, and he has shown no reluctance to damage anyone who strays from his path. Shame is unknown to Trump, for whom false assertions of fact and delusional reality are mere weapons in his arsenal to achieve his personal goals. With the office or not, the MAGA faithful will do as he commands, for he is the great and powerful Trump, their lord and savior.

It may be that once he’s out of office, the Republicans and conservatives will openly defy Trump, reject him and welcome the day they are rid of this meddlesome priest. But it may well be that Trump no longer needs the trappings of office to exert unilateral control over the MAGA faithful and will continue to rule through the hands of his son or puppet, his Medvedev.

The stain of this will therefore be deep and permanent. It already is. Trump intends to use the 250th celebration next year as a Putin-style glorification of his reign. By then he’ll be riding in the Qatari jet that the Senate just allowed him to keep permanently. Tyrants also demand permanent monuments to their glory. So having paved over the Rose Garden, Trump is now intending to add a massive 90,000 square foot gilded ballroom to the White House itself, forever cementing it as a palatial symbol for his new monarchy.

When the 2029 inauguration ball is held in this low-rent Queens boy’s image of what rich should look like, who will stand in the center of the ballroom welcoming his guests? It might not be the president. It might well be Trump, with his Medvedev at his side.