Arnold Schwarzenegger in “FUBAR.”
Dear Arnold,
In the new Netflix action series, “FUBAR,” you’re terrific as a retiring CIA agent pulled back into a messed-up intelligence conflict because he didn’t realize his daughter is also a secret agent.
You also may not realize that, in real life, the door just opened for you to be pulled back into the FUBAR (“F—ed Up Beyond All Recognition”) of our national politics. I’m writing to ask you to walk through that door, and run for president for the good of our country.
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You’ve long said that you would run for president, if not for two facts: that you were born an Austrian, and that Article II, Sec. 1 of the U.S. Constitution says “no Person except a natural born Citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
The article hasn’t changed, but American devotion to the Constitution and its provisions on presidential eligibility has.
Donald Trump is responsible for this. Incredibly, he has inspired leading Democrats and Republicans to take the position that being constitutionally ineligible to serve as president is no longer a barrier to running for president.
A new consensus has emerged: Voters have the right to choose whomever they want as president, no matter what the Constitution says.
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This is the product of Trump’s own ineligibility for the presidency. The Constitution’s 14th Amendment bars any officer of the U.S. who took a constitutional oath and then “engaged in insurrection” — as Trump did after losing the 2020 election — from holding any other government office. Leading constitutional scholars, from right and left, have affirmed that Trump isn’t eligible.
But being ineligible hasn’t stopped Trump from running from office or from remaining on the ballot in every state, including the two states, Colorado and Maine, that ruled him ineligible. With the U.S. Supreme Court expected to decide the eligibility question nationwide, and its conservative majority all but certain to keep Trump on ballots, state actions have not taken effect.
Arnold, this makes it clear that you can run. Who could object without looking like a hypocrite?
The courts can’t, once they’ve blessed Trump’s unconstitutional run. Trump certainly can’t, given his own ineligibility and his repeated promises to “terminate” the U.S. Constitution itself.
The media won’t stop Trump, because they need in the race to draw audiences and keep their failing enterprises afloat. Democrats won’t stop him because they want to run against him — he’s the weakest Republican presidential contender. And Trump’s Republican challengers, fearful of his deranged base, are simply too scared to challenge him aggressively, even in debates when he’s not present.
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You, on the other hand, have challenged him openly for years. And he hasn’t been able to lay a glove on you in response. That’s because you’re an entertainer even more skilled than Trump at parrying media attacks. You’re as famous as he is, but more respected. You can make Trump look small.
In entering the race, you should emphasize that Republicans and Democrats, by keeping Trump on the ballot, have rubber-stamped the notion that voters should get to choose whomever they want as president, Constitution be damned. When opponents refer to that Article II requirement that candidates be natural born, you should make two arguments. First: You’ve always felt American in your heart and soul — a “natural born” American, in fact. Second: If the Biden vs. Trump matchup is the best that native-born citizens can manage, then it’s high time to welcome foreign-born contenders.
But you shouldn’t just run to stop Trump. You should run to win.
In our interview this summer, you offered huge visions of the future — for improvements in education, for the restoration of people’s health, and for revamping American infrastructure to realize our greatest dreams in economy, technology and environment. By contrast, the tired President Biden hasn’t offered a detailed second-term agenda, much less a vision. And Trump talks endlessly about the past, about history, about grievance, about the 2020 election.
By offering your ideas, you can show the poverty of Trump and Biden’s campaigns.
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“When you don’t have a vision of the future, it’s easier to look back,” you wrote in 2023. “When you don’t have a vision, today doesn’t have much meaning because you don’t know why you’re here doing what you’re doing right now, and tomorrow is downright scary.”
Now, I know that running for president is hard, and let’s face it, you’re 76 years old. But you’re still younger than Trump and Biden.
I know that running for president when the Constitution still says you can’t might look crazy and illegitimate. But the recall that elected you in California was also called crazy and illegitimate.
I know that your friends, family and co-stars won’t want you leaving them to jump into politics again.
But is anything more important than using your power to try to save our FUBAR country?
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Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square
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