this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2026
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Non-american here, why wouldn't Mamdani not be able to run for president?
Gotta be born American.
Like, there's been debate about children of US military born overseas, even in a US military base which is for all intents legally American soil.
Edit:
And to clarify, Mamdani ain't trying to change that
People just started saying it.
The debate about what natural-born means has often been confusing to me.
The USA does both, Jus Soli and Jus Sanguinis to determine citizen status at birth. But when it's about eligibility for president, suddenly extra weight should be put on Jus Soli being the only real proper form of citizenship? That makes no sense to me.
I thought natural-born would mean citizen at birth, not immigrated and naturalized. To avoid situations where for example some English noble immigrates and naturalizes in name only, uses his wealth to gain political power, and then puts the US back under English influence. It makes sense to me that the founders of a new republic would want to avoid having it twisted by former masters.
You mean Boris Johnson?
Not sure if i agree with that rule but if that's what the majority of the people want; sure, why not.
The people were never given an option to vote on this, and it's been a thing longer than any living person.
This isn't to say it's a bad rule. I haven't made up my mind. However, it's not as good as a rule like one making the president divest from any business interest, as an example, and we don't have that. If we're not going to have a rule like that then I don't see any reason why a foreign born person shouldn't be allowed to be president. If it's about loyalty, surely loyalty to yourself exceeds loyalty to some other country of birth for most people, so that needs to be resolved more.
When they made (it's an amendment) it made sense to limit foreign influence.
We still have foreign influence, but imagine an America where a dictator is deposed so they get refugee status and seize power legally. That is why the amendment passed.
Especially in the early days, America was worried about what would become our bread and butter.
The truth about Mamdani is America is full of people eligible to be president who would do just as good of a job.
The risk outweighs the reward.
Mamdani could still be a senator, and serve as long as he's elected.
Like, part of fixing our government, is taking a shit ton of power away from the president. We can't really do that till we get a progressive Congress, but that's the end goal, we don't want consolidated power, because that makes it easily corrupted.
If we don't limit Presidential power, we know Republicans and neoliberals never will.
While there are amendments that affect who can be president, the rule that you must be a natural born citizen is from the original text of the Constitution:
[Article II, Section 1, Clause 5]
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
It is naive to think the way the system works is because the majority want it to work this way.
States aren't ruled by public opinion. Public opinion is ruled by states.
IIRC, can't be a naturalized citizen.
Only USAian born citizen can be elected, Mamdani was born in Uganda. That's why there was the whole conspiracy theory about Obama being born in Haiti
USAian
If it was just American soil, then any soil of the Americans would count.
But it's specifically only the soil of the country USA, which indeed does not unite America