Hypothetical Trump Scenario

In My Humble Opinion
1

Supposedly in ancient China people would curse their enemies by saying, “May you live in interesting times.” I have no idea whether it’s true, but the idea is clear and highly relevant to American politics. In my lifetime politics has been dull. Every four years, two narcissistic men spend a few months pretending to care about the voters think and to convince us that they’re slightly less bad than each other, and eventually one of them gets the support of slightly more than half of voters and becomes President and most of the government chugs along without taking notice. And occasionally we bomb some people in a place that most of us couldn’t find on a map, but we all understand that’s a small price to pay for keeping a superpower out of trouble.

Well, now Donald Trump is here and suddenly we’re living in interesting times. All sorts of possible things could now happen, which were totally outside the realm of possibility a short while ago. As a Weekly Standard cover story put it, we now have to start “thinking the unthinkable”.

I’m laying aside for a moment taxes, economic policy, trade deals, and all that jazz. Most people who consider “President Trump” are uncomfortably aware that the President commands the military and decides whether to launch nuclear missiles. And Donald Trump has already displayed a penchant for violence, a casual willingness to brag about torture and other violations of the Constitution, and rather poor impulse control. Putting these facts together could give anyone a few sleepless nights. In theory the Constitution says that only Congress can declare a war, but in the past few decades, Presidents have been granted more and more authority without so much of that old “checks and balances” crap.

Six months ago, we could have said that three things separated us from President Trump careless launching nukes. First, he probably wouldn’t win the Republican nomination. Second, if he did, he probably would lose to Hillary. Third, if he became President, he’d probably stay within the bounds of civilized behavior, rather than casually using the military to kill people without any justification.

Well, he’s cleared the first hurdle without breaking a sweat. As for the second and third, I still find both of them probable and so do most other people, but one has to acknowledge it’s possible that Trump will beat Hillary in the general election, and then bring his unhinged side to the role of Commander in Chief. So we can imagine scenarios such as:
[ul]
[li]Trump’s rhetorical attack against China escalates. China’s belligerent behavior towards its neighbors continues, and the American military gets involved. Tempers flare, fire is exchanged, and then Trump decides to launch a nuke against Beijing.[/li][li]Rising protests against President Trump by immigrant rights group and others dominate the news. Trump uses occasional violence by protesters to justify a police crackdown. Protests grow more severe and violent in response. Then Trump commands an army unit to attack protesters.[/li][li]Trump gets very upset about something that the New York Times published, calls it “treasonous”, and orders the Air Force to bomb Times headquarters.[/li][/ul]
Now while there are plenty of people who are probably imagining such scenarios and some are writing about them, no one that I know of has dealt with the question of “And then what happens?” Well then what would happen? I don’t know, but one scenario has occurred to me. It goes somewhat like this:

  1. President Trump order a nuclear bomb dropped on Mexico City, or something like that. 2. A group of a half dozen or so top military brass convene hastily in the bowels of the Pentagon. 3. A Navy Seal team is dispatched to kill Trump. 4. All the television networks are informed that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be giving a press conference that evening. 5. At the press conference, he announces that since democracy has stopped working, the USA will henceforth be a military dictatorship.

Now obviously this is a very far-fetched scenario. Yet a quiet voice in my head keeps saying, “not as far-fetched as it was a year ago.”

2

I’m quite certain the military would refuse to carry out such nuke-launch orders. People have to actually comply with such an order for it to happen; the President doesn’t have the launch keys himself.

3

Hmm I can see maybe in the Middle East or SE Asia, but Mexico? Not happening, if only because we’d likely get a lot of the fallout.

The solution is nowhere near that extreme. Impeachment, not that it’ll be necessary. There’s only one way the military would disobey orders, and that’s because they’re illegal.

4

I don’t foresee a military coup. But I do think it’s possible that Trump would blunder us into a war.

A Trump Presidency would be a failure; that’s a given. He’ll either fail to get the programs he’s promised to deliver or, worse yet, he’ll somehow manage to put his plans into effect and they’ll be a huge disaster. So there’s going to be widespread discontent and protests. I figure Trump will be about as unpopular as Nixon was in 1974 and there will be calls for him to either resign or be impeached.

Other nations will see this and decide to push their own interests while the United States appears to be wrapped up in its domestic turmoil. Maybe Russia will invade Belarus. Maybe China will push forward in the South China Sea. Maybe Iran will test a nuclear weapon. There will be some major crisis.

And Trump will jump into the middle of it. He’ll attempt to restore his public image by being a “strong leader”. But the tail won’t wag the dog. This won’t be some third world country he can overpower into submission. People like Putin or Xi or Khamenei are going to see that Trump’s a hollow shell and they’ll call his bluff.

Trump will be too bull headed to back down. So he’ll follow up his threats by sending American troops into some place where they shouldn’t be and with no clear plans. We’ll have another Vietnam or Iraq on our hands.

5

How absolute is the president’s command of the military? If he issues any kind of outrageous military orders, can the Joint Chiefs of Staff veto that? Or, more informally, just abstain from executing his orders?

Can the president give orders directly to anyone in the military, bypassing the Joint Chiefs?

6

Technically, he can order the military to do pretty much anything; he is, after all, the Commander-in-Chief. However, military men are required to disobey illegal orders; unethical ones are sort of a grey area.

For instance, a major concern for many years has been the issue of officers launching nukes should they be given the launch codes. As far as I know, whenever there have been launch drills, some percentage won’t turn the keys because they get caught up in the moral consequences of possible mass killing. This was the initial premise of WarGames. I don’t think anyone has been court-martialed for DDO for that, though.

Yes, the President can order anyone in the chain of command, but in practice that would be limited, say, to special forces or black ops and such where he would have direct or indirect contact with the men/women involved. Normally orders would be passed down through the chain of command.

7

Oh, good grief!

Has anyone here ever heard of Trump going ballistic on anyone in his private life? Has he ever threatened any of his numerous foes over the years with physical violence?

What Trump does when a dispute happens or someone ticks him off is to sue them, a perfectly legal and civilized thing to do. It’s how disputes are supposed to be settled. Trump has done an excellent job of raising his kids, he’s on good terms with both of his ex-wives, and to my knowledge not one of the many bankers, lawyers, financiers, construction workers he’s dealt with, nor any of his more than 15,000 employees has ever complained that he threatened to get physical with them or to have someone get physical with them.

Trump plays by the rules. He tries and often succeeds at using them to his advantage, but his reputation is not one of dodging taxes, extortion, ripping off vendors or otherwise disobeying the law.

I remember an observation someone made during the cold war that the reason the U.S.S.R. hadn’t lobbed any nukes at us was because “Russians love their grandchildren too”. I can pretty much guarantee you that Trump loves his children and grandchildren as much as anybody, and for that reason alone he’d be very, very reluctant to go firing off nukes at anybody, though I’m sure there are countless other reasons as well.

I’m not voting for Trump, but I’ve followed him and his career for decades and I just can’t believe all the hooey people on this board come up with about the guy. I admit he’s unpredictable, and that’s why I’m not voting for him. I have no idea what he might actually do once in office. But I don’t think for a minute that he’ll start lobbing nukes at other countries, either in a fit of rage (which I don’t imagine he really engages in much anyway) or because something about the way they’re conducting their affairs pisses him off. More likely is that he’ll trying bringing suit, or perhaps organizing a coalition of countries to make whoever it is that pissed him off pay a price. But attack them with nukes when they’ve lobbed none our way? Ain’t gonna happen!

8

Now I’m going to have nightmares tonight. Thanks :mad:

9

What are the smallest sets of people (with or without the Prez) sufficient to launch an armed ICBM? Yes, a crewman is supposed to wait for an order, but what if he’s in a bad mood and points a gun at his partner? My understanding is that the Presidential “football” contains arming codes for nuclear weapons, but is there a programmer that can bypass or has other access to these codes?

10

Since the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986, the Joint Chiefs have an advisory role only; they’re not involved in the chain of command and have no operational role. The unified combatant commanders (CENTCOM, NORTHCOM, etc) are the senior operational military commanders; they take their orders directly from the President and Secretary of Defense.

When it comes to launching nukes, current law requires two-man-rule authorization at each level of the chain of command. At the top that means the President and Secretary of Defense both have to affirm the orders. Of course, a President can fire a reluctant SecDef at any time and try again with the next guy in line. (The DoD version of the Saturday Night Massacre.)

All in all, I think it’s very unlikely that any President will try to start throwing nukes around willy-nilly. Trump is violently ignorant when it comes to national policy, diplomacy, and how government works, but he’s not insane.

11

First of all, Hillary strikes me as being even more hawklike than Trump, but is smart enough not to blather about it most of the time. Second, I’d like to see your basis for “China’s belligerent behavior towards its neighbors continues”. What belligerence has there been, so far? As far as I know, China seems perfectly at peace with all herr neighbors. More so, than the USA is with our own

12

I wouldn’t say that China’s relationships with, for instance, Tibet, North Korea and Taiwan are better than the US’ relations with Canada and Mexico. No doubt our relations with Mexico will not be improved by a Trump presidency (which God forbid), but the idea of Trump nuking Mexico City are IMO a bit more far-fetched than a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

[quote]
[ul][li]Trump’s rhetorical attack against China escalates. China’s belligerent behavior towards its neighbors continues, and the American military gets involved. Tempers flare, fire is exchanged, and then Trump decides to launch a nuke against Beijing. [/ul][/li][/quote]
I doubt Trump would involve himself in a major war - more like Syria or somewhere like that. In any event, the “two-man rule” mentioned previously would prevent him from unilaterally nuking anybody.

[quote]
[ul][li]Rising protests against President Trump by immigrant rights group and others dominate the news. Trump uses occasional violence by protesters to justify a police crackdown. Protests grow more severe and violent in response. Then Trump commands an army unit to attack protesters. [/ul][/li][/quote]
I think we can bet on lots and lots of protests against Trump, starting during the campaign and continuing thru his Presidency (again, which God forbid). And some of that is going to be violent, on both sides, although probably more on one side after he is elected (see above). But controlling violent protest is a police and local function - the idea of Trump calling out the National Guard to quell protest is unlikely.

Plus he wouldn’t want to. His campaign for the Presidency is driven by ego and attention-seeking - he would delighted to see violent protest, which he would use to pump up his ego and his campaign.

[quote]
[ul][li]Trump gets very upset about something that the New York Times published, calls it “treasonous”, and orders the Air Force to bomb Times headquarters. [/ul][/li][/quote]
Not going to happen. Because to him, any attention is good. A treasonous editorial against him he will interpret that he is right. That’s not going to change if he is elected (which God forbid).

He is an idiot, but the Republic will survive.

Regards,
Shodan

13

…loudly tell his followers to knock the crap out of someone, and loudly assure his followers he’ll defend them in court if they hurt someone. That’s not supposition or deduction; it’s just a bunch of stuff that happened. What happens if he gets the pardon power and the ability to bark orders at folks who have to salute him?

14

You mean besides threatening protestors at his rallies with violence? You mean besides promising to commit war crimes and torture people? You mean besides threatening to override the first amendment so he can “get justice” for people who said bad things about him in public?

15

One of these things is not like the other. First, thanks to Obama, Iran most likely doesn’t have the ability to produce a nuclear weapon. Second, Iran is in a strategically important area (unlike North Korea), so any test is going to generate a reaction from more than just the US.

16

As for the scenario that Trump goes insane and the military kills/imprisons him and declares a military dictatorship, that’s not going to work.

OK, let’s stipulate that Trump goes insane, and there’s some sort of scuffle, and shots are fired, and ooops, it turns out the president is dead now. Hey, it’s nobody’s fault, this is not the time to assign blame, it’s time to figure out what to do next.

So some general gets on TV and announces a military dictatorship? No, of course they won’t, even if there is a cabal of generals who just whacked the president there is no way they’ll try to establish military rule.

How do dictatorships work? Anyone can declare themselves dictator, but only a few people can make it actually work. And the way military dictatorships work is that some person or cabal has the support of military forces that will follow their orders and ignore the orders of the nominal civilian leadership.

So for a general to declare military rule, they’d have to be able to call up the 82nd Airborne and have those guys out on the streets shooting protesters and arresting troublesome political opponents. And the human beings who make up the military would have to agree to follow those orders. Now why would they do that? In some countries military personnel have no loyalty to the country itself, they have particular loyalty to a particular commander. Why are they loyal to that guy? Because he’s the guy that makes sure they get paid, and can do whatever they like. They accept him as their patron because it’s a good deal for them. Or military units are loyal to a particular ethnic group, and will obey orders from the leaders of that ethnic group rather than the national leaders.

Dictators rely on people obeying orders, and if people don’t obey orders then the dictatorship doesn’t work. Why did the legions obey Caesar’s orders to march on Rome? Because they’d won a hundred battles with him as their leader, and the guys in the Senate were trying to strip their hero of his rightful honors. And the Senate was corrupt and useless, and needed to be kicked in the ass. And so when Caesar gave his orders to cross the Rubicon, his soldiers obeyed, they marched on Rome, and Caesar was named dictator for life.

In America how is that going to work? Your average private isn’t personally loyal to any general, or any officer for that matter. So when some random general gets on the horn and tells the 82nd Airborne to attack Pittsburgh, what happens? The general sends the orders, but who obeys the orders? Unless the military as a whole decides to obey orders from the coup plotters, the coup doesn’t happen, and pretty soon the generals get dragged out into a field and shot in the back of the head. Or isn’t it traditional to leave a gun with a single bullet in their cell, and advise them to do the only honorable thing?

17

What if… people weren’t harboring an irrational fear of DT?

18

They would think he was a buffoon for perfectly rational reasons.

Regards,
Shodan

19

Kinda negates all the doom and gloom nuke talk then, huh?

20

Not really. Nobody is saying he would be a harmless and ineffective buffoon.