I never said extinction - not even for the American people. “Just” 90% casualties, IF the attack was done correctly. That’d leave about 32 million of us, not living well, with quite a lot of blood in the eye about the whole thing. Of course, I’d expect that we’d hit back at someone, or several someones, and to do so very hard. But the USA as we know it would cease to exist.
Worst case, I could easily see a couple billion people surviving, and we (the human race, not the rump USA) would colonize the solar system over the next couple hundred years.
You’re correct, one incident won’t cause an extinction event. But it could end the US as we know it. To think otherwise is simply hubris. That said, I think that we could easily build counter-measures to lessen the impact of such an attack (or a solar storm, for that matter), and thereby avoid the whole thing. But that requires a Trump Administration, with Newt Gingrich (who co-authored a book about an EMP attack) as a reasonably high-level advisor who could grab Trump’s attention on this issue.
Might hit that Georgia Guide stones target after all!
“Limit earth’s population to 500 Million”
Upshot: affordable housing will be plentiful.
RE: “That’d leave about 32 million of us, not living well, with quite a lot of blood in the eye about the whole thing.”