The game changer though? Positively negatively, he's a thug with a nuclear arsenal. 

Not you, but it seems much of the nation has become desensitized about the worse than dramatic consequences of a nuclear war. Oh, "we survivors only need to start cleaning up the rubble the next day," will never again be the reality of a post war people. 

With the invention of 'total death,' the world, and how we deal with it, changed forever.