Originally published by Divided We Fall.
By Congressman Ralph Norman (R-SC)
As we near the midterm elections, the debate on Congressional term limits resurfaces once again. Many bolster their arguments in favor of limits with the claim that incumbents hold power for too long. Those who argue against term limits claim that incumbents are the most qualified for the job and, having served before, are best able to push legislation through.
Let’s begin with the numbers. According to Ballotpedia, 93% of incumbents running for re-election in 2020 won their races. At the beginning of the 117th Congress, the average amount of prior service for each chamber was about 9 years for House members and 11 years for Senators. Although these averages don’t seem high, a large number of members serve for significantly longer.
The Affliction of Endless Incumbency
While many suggest that incumbents are the ones who should stay in government and not be regulated by term limits, the Constitution states otherwise. Our Founding Fathers never wanted career politicians to overrun the government. Instead, they established representation of the people and by the people. Despite this, the presence of career politicians has increased over time, with some Congress members serving as long as 59 years. An example of this from the 117th Congress was Representative Don Young, who had served a total of 49 years before ultimately passing away in office. In order to prevent members of either chamber from serving close to 50 years, there must be new legislation.
A hypothetical bill, one which would limit members of the House and the Senate to 12 years in service, would drastically change the environment on Capitol Hill. By limiting the tenures of career politicians, there would no longer be such huge gaps in experience between someone who was newly elected and someone who had been in office for an extended time. Members would have more opportunities to serve on committees that they were specifically interested in and have their opinions matter. It would be possible to see more mentoring between members, as legislators sought to maximize their shorter time in office by ensuring that important issues are continuously worked on by many more people.
As it currently stands, there are many members of Congress who hold the belief that they do not need to work with the other political party nor, indeed, anyone whose values differ from theirs. Neither side is to blame for the stark contrast in differing opinions. But rather than working towards understanding each other’s perspective, the unlimited terms that members can be reelected to allow legislators to dismiss opportunities for dialogue and instead, simply wait however long it takes until their side once again has the majority. Term limits would bring a steady flow of new members into Congress — members who would be more inclined to work with a wider range of people, rather than stick to their previous, familiar collaborators.
Term limits would allow more ideas to pass through Congress, as well. The foundation of American democracy is kept firm by representatives in government who truly represent the citizens in their districts. Recognizing their bounded tenures, legislators would shift their focus away from constant re-election and center it back upon being productive in office and carrying out the hopes of their constituents. This way, we would see a move towards bipartisanship within Congress. With more attention paid to the constituents, members would reach across the aisle more often, being less concerned with self-aggrandization and fawning media coverage.
The Physician Must Heal Itself
Robert Yates, the presumed author of Brutus 16, was concerned with the potential disconnect between members of Congress and their constituents back home. When we understand that a position in Congress is not only honorable but also potentially lucrative, the desire to remain in power for as long as possible can actually seem reasonable. That desire to forever be on center stage is precisely why Yates warned that members, “should not be so long in office as to be likely to forget the hand that formed them, or be insensible of their interests. Men long in office are very apt to feel themselves independent [and] to form and pursue interests separate from those who appointed them.”
Today, there is quite a lot of glamour around being a politician. The media loves to pick out the most divisive and well-known political figures to elevate in their headlines. However, Yates understood that the first and foremost role of a public figure needed to be that of a civil servant. Implementing term limits would reduce the capacity of celebrity-seeking demagogues to stir the pot and polarize the public’s opinions. Limits on time in office would assist in keeping politicians more grounded in their work, rather than in their image.
Congress must pass a bill allowing it to set term limits for its members. This can be done without needing to amend the Constitution. The spirit of democracy, the foundation of our great nation, is built upon the recognition by all public officials that their time in power is only momentary. The continuous, collaborative work of government requires the continual transition of power from one person to the next. Legislators must accept that the topics of discussion, issues, and ideals will continue to exist long after any single person’s term in office. America grows stronger when we realize that real progress cannot be made alone.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.