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[MetalSlimeHunt]

I don't think Trump intends to actually take over the world, though he certainly seems like the type to fantasize about that sort of thing.

If the US were actually going to take over the world, it would start by solidification of our island territory and generous buyout offers for other island nations. I totally believe we'd get takers if we tried something like that. You'd then want to move on to even further hyperpower solidification regarding our economics by getting in a Reverse Cold War and being BFFs with China. Then use the US Navy to aggressively wage trade wars against nations that don't accept increasing American transnational influence. The first major territorial gains would be from Mexico. Help destabilize the nation until federal authority collapses entirely, and invade to restore order. Never leave. Pull a Crimean-style referendum to annex increasing parts of the Mexican Occupation Zone until America consumes all the good parts. Also, use the Panama Canal to justify reacquiring the entire nation, stage a terrorist attack or something. We already provide Costa Rica's sovereign protection, use that to occupy.

At some point in all this, you want to start making moves against Canada. Not hostile moves, but as American power becomes overwhelming in the world our ability to sway the Canadian political system would increase rapidly. With the take over the world goal in mind and dedication, in the end they'll come willingly. Once all of North America is under American control, which would take the better part of a century but is far from impossible, we're truly unstoppable. I'll stop there, but that's the idea of how it'd happen. Salami the world into ever-increasing spheres of American control. In say, two to three centuries, it's all done. Sooner if some perfect negation of nuclear weapons can be placed solely in US hands.

If you ever think American foreign policy is a bastard, be glad we try to think of ourselves as liberators instead of conquering overlords...

[Crashmaster]

I see a lot more reason and parallels in predictions that draw conclusions closer to some sort of 'Third New Deal,' then those that imitate hollywood nazi-movie plots.

[redwallzyl]

their is of course the problem of the military almost certainly straight up refusing an order like to attack Mexico. don't underestimate the military mentality, they are not an army of conquest and are a pure volunteer force lead by people who have up and down no intention of doing any such thing and this is deeply ingrained.

[Rolepgeek]

They could reinstate the draft. Though the generals who refused would likely be fired or court martialed.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Like the military refused to attack Vietnam and Iraq for no reason. Soldiers are typically disciplined and often principled, but they don't refuse lawful orders.

More importantly, you're not attacking Mexico, you're saving the Mexican people from rampant cartel massacres and the failed state they live in during this scenario. Learn your justifications for war, it makes everything a lot clearer. The best thing about these kinds of justifications is that they're not even untrue, you are helping. It's just not the full truth.

I don't think America at large dedicating itself to world conquest is at all a realistic scenario, but if we were going to do it these details are how it would be done. I'm just playing armchair geopolitics here, but what I wrote is almost certainly similar to whatever war plans the Pentagon keeps on "if we need to invade Mexico", and if it isn't it's because they thought of something even more clever I didn't realize.

[DJ]

I don't think he's interested in conquest, more likely he's jealous of better businessmen like Soros and because of that want to wreck them, and at the same time enter history as an American hero who saved the people from the evil corporations

[Strife26]

Like the military refused to attack Vietnam and Iraq for no reason. Soldiers are typically disciplined and often principled, but they don't refuse lawful orders.

More importantly, you're not attacking Mexico, you're saving the Mexican people from rampant cartel massacres and the failed state they live in during this scenario. Learn your justifications for war, it makes everything a lot clearer. The best thing about these kinds of justifications is that they're not even untrue, you are helping. It's just not the full truth.

I don't think America at large dedicating itself to world conquest is at all a realistic scenario, but if we were going to do it these details are how it would be done. I'm just playing armchair geopolitics here, but what I wrote is almost certainly similar to whatever war plans the Pentagon keeps on "if we need to invade Mexico", and if it isn't it's because they thought of something even more clever I didn't realize.

Thunder run through Juarez sounds pretty cool, actually.

[smjjames]

I only hope that the only things Trump maintains in his plans are;

* FIFTH, a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government;
* SIXTH, a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.

That solution is actually rather unconstitutional because First Amendment, and a lifetime ban seems WAY overboard.

However, I'd be happy if he tries to at least do something about the lobbying issues and the revolving door, as long as it's constitutional and actually works.

[Starver]

So there's a petition with 2 million signatures calling for the Electoral College to vote for Clinton.

Also this: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.inverse.com/amp/article/23594-petitions-faithless-electors-legal-fees?client=ms-android-verizon

There was an equally childish petition after Brexit by butthurt Remainers to ignore the result of the vote.

No, that was a petition started by a pre-butthurt Brexiter, prior to the vote, wanting another go at the cherry pie if the first slice failed to please him. He got quite upset when his 'reasonable' try-again request became his opponent's 'unreasonable' try-again request.

[Max™]

their is of course the problem of the military almost certainly straight up refusing an order like to attack Mexico. don't underestimate the military mentality, they are not an army of conquest and are a pure volunteer force lead by people who have up and down no intention of doing any such thing and this is deeply ingrained.

Yeah, but that would end up really fucking with a lot of the current governmental structure that depends on tradition where legal structures aren't in place. The President gives orders to the Secretary of Defense, who passes them the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from which the relevant branches have their different methods of handling things.

They can totally say "Y'know, go ahead and blow up Omaha anyways" and give it as an official order, which is going to end up breaking down pretty rapidly, but even if it got out to the actual troops there is little reason to think they'd follow an order like that, so what now? Lord knows he'd probably be quick to whip out the "You're fired" line, but is he going to have to dismiss the entire armed forces? Could he? What if some of them follow the order? Obviously Congress wouldn't give approval to this order, but after Bush Sr. the war-making powers of the President are broad to say the least.

[Loud Whispers]

Frumple, I've been thinking on the points you made regarding my "forsaken manufacturing worker" theory as to the rise of right-wing nationalism, and I think you do have a point. It's not that those who ended up unemployed or underemployed immediately turned this direction; hell, many benefited from various Democrat policies. It's that social media such as Reddit and Twitter gave them opportunities to stumble upon the rather alluring alt-right, which gave them an explanation as to why they feel that they aren't as well-off as their parents. The nice thing about this addition to the theory is that it also justifies why this shift happened so suddenly. It also avoids discounting all of the effort put into helping those in need, particularly by Democrats.

Rather amusingly, it lets me blame Brexit on Thatcher.

I have been summoned

[smjjames]

Frumple, I've been thinking on the points you made regarding my "forsaken manufacturing worker" theory as to the rise of right-wing nationalism, and I think you do have a point. It's not that those who ended up unemployed or underemployed immediately turned this direction; hell, many benefited from various Democrat policies. It's that social media such as Reddit and Twitter gave them opportunities to stumble upon the rather alluring alt-right, which gave them an explanation as to why they feel that they aren't as well-off as their parents. The nice thing about this addition to the theory is that it also justifies why this shift happened so suddenly. It also avoids discounting all of the effort put into helping those in need, particularly by Democrats.

Rather amusingly, it lets me blame Brexit on Thatcher.

I have been summoned

I half expected it to be a British vid, heh.

[Frumple]

Eh... minor point of correction I'd make is it wasn't really reddit or twitter that would have got them into the alt-right. Thing you have to understand is that probably the most significant presence of the alt-right in the US is talk radio, and the sort of demographics we're talking when we talk those workers still listen to the stuff often enough. Their world view gets informed a non-negligible amount by good ol' Limbaugh and his ilk, half-listened to as they go to work or come home or whathaveyou, and they have for most of either of our lives. Alt-right presence among these demographics ain't even remotely a new thing.

Now, talk radio and the internet alt-right is... incestuous, to say the least. Play off and feed into each other a lot, but there's been no stumbling upon the alt-right going on here, by and large. Ground level exposure wouldn't have changed that much. They've been listening to it for years, or around folks that were. What the net stuff would have done... did to a fair degree. Was further legitimize. You hear this radio stuff and it shapes your world view but maybe there's some doubt or at least restraint because that's mostly the only place you hear it explicitly -- fox or whathaveyou dog whistles but rarely more, generally -- or among polite company but then you get into this election and suddenly you see this shit everywhere, look online and see it everywhere, look at the news and see right and left wing media jabbering about shit that's propagated about as much from online crap as anything and was taking cues from what rush or whoever was jabbering about last week regardless. The effect was there in previous elections, the alt-right wasn't some kind of new or unusual thing, exactly. The sheer amount its talking points and narratives were embraced, that is what was unusual. That's a large chunk of where the FTFE comes in. Suddenly crooked hillary and all the other shit isn't just a limbaugh thing, it's something CNN or some whatever the hell is babbling about corruption and scandals and rigging in relation to. That... changes things, y'know? It's not everything but it's a hell of a lot.

Yeah, I've seen Trump lean more towards isolationism over globalism. The idea that he'd wage war left, right, and center unprovoked doesn't make sense.

He did have feet on the ground in syria as one of his campaign... statements. I keep wanting to say promises because that's what you normally say about things politicians say on the campaign trail, but well. Trump. Also fairly notably thin skinned and historically spiteful, and has, if nothing else, stated he wants to do a lot of things that would piss off a lot of other countries. If he goes through with trying to extort countries for protection money and then actually brings military in force into syria, it's not very difficult to see things going very south very quickly. Him getting into a lot of pissing contests with other countries, and then resorting to the biggest stick(s) he has (military, economic sanctions) is... not implausible. It makes a hell of a lot more sense than I'd like. Hell of a lot more sense than a lot of the military would like. Or public, really -- most polling and whatnot regarding military reliability or whatev' were... not particularly enthusiastic. And we're still not sure how much his comments on nukes were trump being trump or trump being earnest.

Thing about trump is that he doesn't really lean towards isolationism, though, save in an economic sense, and even then only in specific ways. It's protectionism -- he's been pretty clear he wants to fuck with the rest of the world fairly vigorously and at least portrays himself as wanting the US in a position of global power and influence (hamhanded as all hell influence, but influence). He's also someone that has difficulty backing down from a challenge of just about any sort. If other countries don't just bend over and think of england, it's hard to say how well he'll react. Now, congress et al, they'll probably/hopefully/maybe stop him, but that doesn't mean the powers given the CIC can't cause some hella' military snafus before they manage it.

Now all that said? To stuff mentioned above, if he tried to institute a draft for shit like settling his own pissing contests, or anything that wasn't outright fending off a ground invasion, you might actually see a civil war in our lifetime, or at least more than one attempt at a coup and/or civil unrest that makes all the shit that's happened the last few years look like a mildly rambunctious kegger party. American public is still pretty iffy on military flexing outside the country, and support for the draft outside of existential threats is... not high. To say the least. Try to force them into that and I'd give good odds it's going to get ugly so fast it gives analysts whiplash.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

What in the ever-loving fuck, LW.

[WealthyRadish]

If the US were actually going to take over the world, it would start by solidification of our island territory and generous buyout offers for other island nations.

I think you've got it backwards, spending hundreds of years accumulating incremental territorial gains seems ridiculous in the era of nuclear weapons and rapidly advancing technology. God only knows what could derail it in that time; at best you've got like 10-30 golden years of one reign to prepare for and start the conflict, and everyone else will be gearing up in that time as well.

Maybe you could warm up and get some easy pickings before breaking the nuclear stalemate, but Russia and China would need to both be nuked one way or another, and they'll be on alert at the first sign of abnormal behavior. So really, if your goal is world conquest, you should probably open with nuclear weapons on both, without even doing any basic preparation. Starting a completely unprovoked global nuclear war halfway through an otherwise normal presidential term won't exactly be popular, and I don't think any fabrication of justification after the fact could remain convincing for longer than a few years, but if you can survive and successfully transition to dictatorship, the world is your oyster.