President Donald Trump is flirting with constitutional catastrophe by speculating that he may yet violate the clear command of the 22nd Amendment to seek the presidency a third time in the manner of Napoleon’s 1804 self-coronation. Trump has even enthusiastically quoted Napoleon to justify such lawlessness: “He who saves his Country does not violate any law.”

But the U.S. Constitution is not some minor paperwork for an incumbent president to set aside when it’s not to his liking. If the 22nd Amendment can be flouted, who can say what other fundamental rights can be trampled. Free speech? An independent judiciary? Due process? Equal protection? The right to privacy? Torch the Constitution on one matter and it all ends up in flames.

The text of the 22nd Amendment leaves little room for debate: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once.” Is President Trump contemplating self-deification like Roman Emperors to evade the prohibition? The prevailing wisdom (if such a word is appropriate for this hypothetical) is that Trump is thinking that perhaps he can circumvent the law by running as a vice presidential candidate and then having the individual at the top of the ticket resign.

Yet the 12th Amendment blocks this very possibility of a reversed JD Vance/Trump ticket in 2028. The amendment provides “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President (like Trump in 2028) shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the United States.”

The 22nd Amendment is too important as a guardrail preventing a de facto dictatorship coming to the United States to be ignored. Alexander Hamilton’s proposed lifetime presidency at the constitutional convention was universally repudiated. As highly regarded as Franklin Delano Roosevelt may have been as he helped guide the nation through the Great Depression and World War II, his four-term presidency gave serious pause. The 22nd Amendment wasn’t a lark, it was a carefully considered measure approved by Congress in 1947 and ratified by the states four years later.

This is not the first time that Trump has appeared to dismiss Constitutional boundaries. From his numerous examples of executive overreach on matters spanning from federal funding freezes to banning birthright citizenship and then calling for the impeachment of judges who dare to rule against him, Trump’s aversion to the rule of law is too often on full display.

If GOP leaders in Congress have concern for the Constitution, they’ll force the president to testify before Congress to explain his recent suggestion on NBC News that there are “methods” to circumvent the two-term limit. As none exist that are not flagrantly unconstitutional in both letter and spirit of the law, one has to wonder: Is President Trump contemplating a military coup?

After all, President Gerald Ford testified before Congress to explain his pardon of President Richard Nixon, a fellow Republican. The precedent did not weaken the presidency or shake separation of powers. This is no time for congressional cravenness when the survival of the American Revolution against dictatorship is at stake.

Or maybe a lot of Americans think Trump’s flirtation with a third term is just more performance art, the equivalent of provocative postings on social media with the sole goal of getting a rise out of his critics and keeping his name in the headlines or distracting from other matters. That possibility has some appeal. It would portray the current Oval Office occupant as more of a circus entertainer than aspiring autocrat. But is it really that much better?

It was a short time ago that Republican members of Congress were sounding the alarm about unconstitutional overreach by the Biden administration in regard to student loan cancellation. More recently, GOP lawmakers have been up in arms over federal judges standing in the way of President Trump’s agenda. How come that outrage doesn’t carry over when the president suggests abusing power in such a way that we have never, outside of wartime, experienced in this nation?

Finally, we would simply remind President Trump that unserious rhetoric about grave matters such as the sanctity of the Constitution risks squandering the trust of the people. What happens if tomorrow or the day after, the United States finds itself in conflict, perhaps in a full-fledged war, and he has to ask his fellow Americans to make life-and-death sacrifices? Will he be taken seriously? Will people rally around an aspiring potentate? Or will Americans warily (and wearily) assume that this is just another excuse to expand his executive powers?