The problem I remember is that it is expensive to get the rod up there in the first place.
Also every other nation would hate us and make jokes about the collective small penis of the US state.
The rods from God’s idea is insane and won’t work.
We had this back when the Russians announced they were going to drop conventional ordinance from space, and everyone pointed out that they would be lucky to hit the right continent, let alone Ukraine. In order to make this actually work, you would have to have an active aiming system. Which you know, is a missile.
The launch platform can aim it and use math to account for gravity, the atmosphere and all that jazz to hit the target at least close enough. Just like we already do to safely crash/burn up space debris.
What about the Jewish Space Lasers that MTG said started the wildfires?
If anyone wants some good sci-fi, I recommend The Expanse, both the books and the show. They make great use of kinetic impactors, especially Nemesis Games.