Eighty-sixed again

In light of this Guardian headline — “Trump serious about pursuing a third term, Gavin Newsom warns” — I want to repost words in wrote in April:

In all the talk about a third term for the First Felon, I find one point conspiciously missing: at the end of a third term, the FF would be eighty-six years old. I can find no mention of that in The New York Times or The Washington Post.

And guess who would have been eighty-six at the end of a second term? Joe Biden, a point that no one following the 2024 campaign would have been able to miss.

I don’t doubt that the First Felon would like to remain the occupant, most likely not by running for a third term but by suspending elections. But as he declines, both mentally and physically, I think it’s wrongheaded to speculate about his dream without keeping in mind the fact of mortality. To think the First Felon capable of remaining in office past 2028 is to invest him with an aura of invincibility that has no basis in reality.

What does have a basis in reality? Mortality. “Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?”: the ultimate in narcissistic mortification is death.

[It’s still the case that there’s no acknowledgement of the eighty-six, or 86, in the Times and Post. For clarity: my use of the number refers to age alone.]