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[Flying Dice]

If Trump's presidency results in a Constitutional Amendment, it will almost certainly be a response to some element of his regime, rather than something pushed forward by it.

A major terror attack could win back the majority support for him.

I'm not certain. Granted, there's be the usual rally-'round-the-flag effect to some degree, but I can't help wondering if a terror attack after he has made such an issue of being proactive and strong on terror would invite backlash due to perceptions of him being incompetent or not delivering on a core campaign promise. Like, imagine if Sanders won and then pushed hard for privatizing and commercializing education, that's the level of betrayal that a Trump seen as weak on terror would occupy in the eyes of his base.

Bush enjoyed a boost from 9/11 because it was a generation-defining moment and terrorism wasn't really in the public eye prior to that. This is a very different context: part of the population doesn't think terrorism is an issue, part thinks that the government needs to go full authoritarian in the name of security, and neither is going to be pleased by Trump allowing a serious terrorist act to occur on U.S. soil and then ineffectually flailing. Gods above and below help him (only rhetorically, not literally please, ye nonexistent deities) if he tries to address such a situation by invading some country, because almost nobody in the U.S. wants another war.

[Sergarr]

If Trump's presidency results in a Constitutional Amendment, it will almost certainly be a response to some element of his regime, rather than something pushed forward by it.

A major terror attack could win back the majority support for him.

I'm not certain. Granted, there's be the usual rally-'round-the-flag effect to some degree, but I can't help wondering if a terror attack after he has made such an issue of being proactive and strong on terror would invite backlash due to perceptions of him being incompetent or not delivering on a core campaign promise. Like, imagine if Sanders won and then pushed hard for privatizing and commercializing education, that's the level of betrayal that a Trump seen as weak on terror would occupy in the eyes of his base.

Bush enjoyed a boost from 9/11 because it was a generation-defining moment and terrorism wasn't really in the public eye prior to that. This is a very different context: part of the population doesn't think terrorism is an issue, part thinks that the government needs to go full authoritarian in the name of security, and neither is going to be pleased by Trump allowing a serious terrorist act to occur on U.S. soil and then ineffectually flailing. Gods above and below help him (only rhetorically, not literally please, ye nonexistent deities) if he tries to address such a situation by invading some country, because almost nobody in the U.S. wants another war.

What if it was a nuclear terrorist attack?

[Flying Dice]

If Trump's presidency results in a Constitutional Amendment, it will almost certainly be a response to some element of his regime, rather than something pushed forward by it.

A major terror attack could win back the majority support for him.

I'm not certain. Granted, there's be the usual rally-'round-the-flag effect to some degree, but I can't help wondering if a terror attack after he has made such an issue of being proactive and strong on terror would invite backlash due to perceptions of him being incompetent or not delivering on a core campaign promise. Like, imagine if Sanders won and then pushed hard for privatizing and commercializing education, that's the level of betrayal that a Trump seen as weak on terror would occupy in the eyes of his base.

Bush enjoyed a boost from 9/11 because it was a generation-defining moment and terrorism wasn't really in the public eye prior to that. This is a very different context: part of the population doesn't think terrorism is an issue, part thinks that the government needs to go full authoritarian in the name of security, and neither is going to be pleased by Trump allowing a serious terrorist act to occur on U.S. soil and then ineffectually flailing. Gods above and below help him (only rhetorically, not literally please, ye nonexistent deities) if he tries to address such a situation by invading some country, because almost nobody in the U.S. wants another war.

What if it was a nuclear terrorist attack?

What if it was an invasion of aliens from Tau Ceti?

Only slightly more seriously, if a suitcase nuke was detonated in NYC or DC or whatever, in that remote possibility, I don't see Trump coming out well from it, even if he survives. He and his team have the basic fascist authoritarian playbook down pretty well, but he doesn't have the charisma, personal ability, or team-building ability to actually run things effectively. Most likely outcome is that he fucks up hard in the wake, ruins whatever support it may have gained him-though more likely that he becomes even more reviled, replacing "Dubya reads a picture book while the Twin Towers burn" with "Trump [does stupid thing] while a mushroom cloud blossoms over [city]" in the American consciousness.

Basically an act of nuclear terrorism on American soil means a one-term Trump regime and probably a pair of serious hawks in the next campaign. That's one scenario where I genuinely would expect the GOP to not back him in a reelection run.

[Max™]

Plus: anyone wanna take odds on the hypothetical in which we are attacked, it is a major attack, people are pushing for some response, and Trump agrees so he does the obvious thing and invades Mexico?

What if it was a nuclear terrorist attack?

Setting aside the absurdity there, as no, suitcase nukes are not a real thing which anyone besides say, the US itself would have, and it's more like a backpack nuke. While a Davy Crockett level bomb going off would suck, but unless perfectly planned it would be less effective than planes were, we're talking 5 to 10 kilotons.

A real full nuclear weapon type event would be impressive since you'd have to wonder how they managed to acquire and haul a W87 around.

So assuming hypercapable and impossibly well supplied Xanatos chess master level bad guys, sure, a terrorist nuke attack could happen, and Trump would be forced to respond...

..so once again, he'd invade Mexico.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

10. World War Trump - Here's where I have a massive disagreement with Nate Nitrogen. A lot of comparisons have been drawn between 2000 and 2016, but I think they couldn't have been more different. 2000 was a very popular election, lots of people were in the "I'd be happy with Bush but I'd also be happy with Gore" bracket (and god, that seems like an almost unimaginable position today). Conversely, as we all remember, 2016 is the most unpopular election with the possible exception of the one right before the Civil War. Because of this, I don't see people's love of Trump shooting up just because of a terrorist attack, it'd have to exceed 9/11 at the least for that. Most people who are primarily swayed by terrorism are already Trump supporters, in fact it is not impossible that a major attack could make people hate Trump more, if from his failure to defend the US or just because of the hate in the air.

Trump does not have the factors at play to take advantage of a terrorist attack. He might not even have the factors to take advantage of a false flag. Don't be blinded by history, the man's no Dubya. Never thought I'd be saying that...

[Frumple]

Gods above and below help him (only rhetorically, not literally please, ye nonexistent deities) if he tries to address such a situation by invading some country, because almost nobody in the U.S. wants another war.

'Course, the worry isn't us invading someone, exactly. It's that someone of trump's character, who has openly asked (to paraphrase _{gods, I hope I'm paraphrasing and not actually remembering the wording}) "Why not nukes?", and has a political support base that has spoken with favorable-ish response of glassing deserts and carpet bombing cities, would do something significantly more immediate than calling for troops on the ground. And given the GOP's track record so far as appropriate target acquisition goes, well...

[Sergarr]

So, what country will be nuked first by Trump: Iran, Mexico, or North Korea?

[Max™]

Mexico probably won't get nuked, but it will get invaded, he'll push for a nuke attack on Iranistan but nobody knows what he means so they will just whip up a CGI display and assure him that Iranistan has been wiped off the map so he can get back to trying to kill the estate tax so nobody will ever notice that his net worth is based entirely on his own false valuation of his properties.

[Lord Shonus]

It is hard to overstate the degree to which the pre-9/11 was convinced of our invulnerability. The Cold War was nothing but a fading memory, and the Department of Defense budget was getting cut to the bone because we had seen the end of war. In the space of a single day that ended, and we didn't take it well. Very few people realized at the time that 9/11 was the sort of attack that only works once, and using it that way was an act of total idiocy. All we really noticed was that our entire worldview was shattered, and when that happens we turned to the man elected to command the ship of state through the storm.

Nothing that happens under the Trump administration can shock us the way 9/11 did, and that means that the sort of support Bush II got in the aftermath is a pipe dream, especially since, unlike Bush, it would be very, very easy to blame Trump for it in the first place.

[Frumple]

Though again, there's plenty of its general intent that's available without going full nuclear. We still have conventional bombs perfectly capable of leveling civilian targets, and I seem to recall that our navel artillery isn't (or at least wouldn't be) too bad at it, either. There's plenty of blindly flailing atrocity our country could unleash without having radioactive fallout get involved. We'd just need someone with sufficient capability to order it and sufficient lack of foresight, character, and restraint to do so, and enough of the military immoral enough to go through with it, possibly even in the face of congressional and/or judicial opposition.

I'd like to think the bits of our military that actually have operational control over that sort of thing have the moral character and spine to not go through with it even under POTUS order, but...

On the other hand, there's part of me that wonders if the president's actual head on a literal pike given to the attacked countries would be sufficient reparation to offset the foreign relations hit involved. Probably on top of some degree of material recompense, of course. What's the wergild involved with carpet bombing a city these days, anyway?

[Flying Dice]

Gods above and below help him (only rhetorically, not literally please, ye nonexistent deities) if he tries to address such a situation by invading some country, because almost nobody in the U.S. wants another war.

'Course, the worry isn't us invading someone, exactly. It's that someone of trump's character, who has openly asked (to paraphrase _{gods, I hope I'm paraphrasing and not actually remembering the wording}) "Why not nukes?", and has a political support base that has spoken with favorable-ish response of glassing deserts and carpet bombing cities, would do something significantly more immediate than calling for troops on the ground. And given the GOP's track record so far as appropriate target acquisition goes, well...

See, there's the thing. I can see Trump ordering a nuclear strike, but I can't see the U.S. military carrying it out under anything resembling these circumstances. Coinflip between someone shooting him and immediate movement towards impeachment if he tries to nuke a country on impulse or in response to a stateless terrorist attack.

[redwallzyl]

i cant see anyone getting away with a nuclear attack unless were in full WW3 mode and not being immediately chucked out of office.

[Dorsidwarf]

Plus: anyone wanna take odds on the hypothetical in which we are attacked, it is a major attack, people are pushing for some response, and Trump agrees so he does the obvious thing and invades Mexico?

What if it was a nuclear terrorist attack?

Setting aside the absurdity there, as no, suitcase nukes are not a real thing which anyone besides say, the US itself would have, and it's more like a backpack nuke. While a Davy Crockett level bomb going off would suck, but unless perfectly planned it would be less effective than planes were, we're talking 5 to 10 kilotons.

A real full nuclear weapon type event would be impressive since you'd have to wonder how they managed to acquire and haul a W87 around.

So assuming hypercapable and impossibly well supplied Xanatos chess master level bad guys, sure, a terrorist nuke attack could happen, and Trump would be forced to respond...

..so once again, he'd invade Mexico.

Saying that a 10-kiloton backpack nuke would kill fewer people than the 9/11 attacks seems strange. Even not airbursted, 10,000 tons of TNT-force is a big fucking explosion that would basically level a hundred-meter circle and kill tens of thousands outside that by setting the whole city centre on fire.
Imagine Hiroshima going off in Times Square on New Years. That's the ultimate fear of antiterrorist organisations. It would be to 9/11 what 9/11 was to the Paris attacks.

[Frumple]

See, there's the thing. I can see Trump ordering a nuclear strike, but I can't see the U.S. military carrying it out under anything resembling these circumstances. Coinflip between someone shooting him and immediate movement towards impeachment if he tries to nuke a country on impulse or in response to a stateless terrorist attack.

Hell, I'd like to think that would happen, too. Thing is, we've got at least two wars in my lifetime that makes that a proposition more questionable than I'm comfortable with. You'd hope our military would immediately turn against blatantly unfounded and/or immoral and/or counterproductive orders, but experience says that's a shakier hope than you'd think. It's not difficult at all to see trump ordering airstrikes or offshore shelling or whathaveyou that involve a great deal of collateral damage* (assuming they're even targeting the intended thing to begin with) and our military going through with it.

And... again. It doesn't have to be nuclear. Nukes are big and flashy, but we got all sorts of shit that can do near as much damage, or close enough to near as much it only matters so much from the perspective of whoever we drop the hammer on. The thing with trump and nukes is that the apparently willingness to use them, even if he wouldn't or he'd be stopped, says a lot about how readily relatively lesser options are on the proverbial table.

*Which is the sanitized terminology for willfully not giving two shits about how many civilians get slaughtered in the process, just to make sure that's clear.

[Flying Dice]

Again, as both Lord Shonus and I have said, we're past the point culturally where an attack on U.S. soil could provide the popular support for extreme action, and likely won't be back to that state for decades to come. And even beyond that, there's a very wide gap between limited conventional warfare in a third-world shithole and first-striking with NBC weapons. The cultural taboo is fucking massive there. If there's one thing that would unify the post-Cold War world against a particular state, that would be it.