If Trump gets elected, I unironically expect us to be at war with Mexico before the 2028 election. He is absolutely going to latch on to this idea like a fucking leech.
If he gets back in, why not end the world before his second term is up? He can't get re-elected so no need to show the level-headedness, restraint and tact he's known for.
Invade Mexico, get bogged down in a forever war with more convenient flights home while on leave. Tell the world that now we're cool with kicking down your neighbor's door to break their stuff. Russia Russias all over the internet about it because Ameri-Ukrainian bio-engineered super soldiers or something, the CCP invades Taiwan (everybody else is doing it, why can't we?), probably a bunch of other conflicts that won't hit the front page while the adults are squabbling. Iran steps up their attacks on the US while Russian and Chinese money and materiel flood into Mexico to support their defense. Red-hat chicken-hawks too old to get drafted eat it up, approval ratings outside the echo chamber take a nosedive. Now faced with the possibility of losing an unpopular war, Donnie can either accept it with grace or knock down all the sandcastles on the beach on the way out and be The Last President. Which do you think he'd choose?
Not sure I'd watch that movie, the characters are unrealistically stupid and cartoonishly evil without a good explanation (other than lead which has been brought up elsewhere) written into the plot.
Now I'm imagining that he's back in office and just arrived at the realization that he's mortal rather than the terminal illness scenario you probably had in mind. Overgrown toddler having an existential crisis tantrum with the capability (in theory, at least) to launch nuclear strikes.
I'm scared too, not only of what he'd do but what it'll mean about us if we put him back in there.
The problem with bombing your neighbour is that the guy whose family you just massacred can buy a bomb and a drone from AliExpress with free shipping and fast delivery (nobody will catch it on the border in Mexico), just grab it and walk across to Manhattan and blow it up on Times Square or the NYSE.
Sure, you can catch the guy. Can you catch all the thousands of guys? If they do it organized by the cartels? Ukrainian SF could infiltrate the back country of Russia and blow up vital train lines along with a train full of military supplies. Would someone who kinda looks Mexican not blend in in the US?
They only need to succeed once for thousands to die. What would the US do with a violent 9/11 every week? How long until it went over to Endlösung-ing everyone who looks Spanish? What if those people start shooting back instead of being quietly led away?
Lead in the air was more responsible for this current political mess than lead in the water. We've taken most of it out of the air now. I have more hope for people who were born after the 1980s.
I’d expect this invasion to go about as well as Iraq and Afghanistan did. On top of that it would alienate most of the population of Northen Mexico who are very Pro USA due to their economic integration with the US economy.
They're coming up from Guatamala, Honduras, El Salvador, etc. Mexico is having the same issue that the US is. I don't know why it has gotten so bad down there that people are fleeing in such high numbers, but if we want to reduce unlawful immigration,new will need to take action down there, before they start coming north, rather than stopping them at the border.
