And the US, and democracy, and the rule of law. Grifting lowlifes. And a GOP happy to enact the Powell Memorandum plan to tear down the state, to gut state power, to allow the biggest corporations rule over the citizens.
> History will remember this administration as a traitor to Europe and its values. Right when the US needs allies.
Time fixes everything. Give it a few generations and the world will be inhibited by new humans who will carry on doing what life demands of them, unfazed by today's events.
If you think the USA will ever be trusted again as they were post-1945, you are very sadly mistaken.
Maybe some trust will be restored in a generations time, but there is no going back to the post-1945 hegemony which saw the USA, and the westen world, all benefit so much.
I think its surprising how short the memory can be for this stuff. Look how long passed between the British invading America and burning down our capital (1812) and us fighting on the same side in the Great War (1917): not even 4 generations. There are obviously counterexamples, but it's not a slam dunk that 10-ish years of Trumpism will sour the European memory on America forever. Maybe it will, maybe it wont. I would think material facts we don't know yet will be the biggest determining factor here, rather than the other way around.
> If you think the USA will ever be trusted again as they were post-1945, you are very sadly mistaken.
> Maybe some trust will be restored in a generations time, but there is no going back to the post-1945 hegemony which saw the USA, and the westen world, all benefit so much.
That's exactly the point. No amount of emotion today will persist the tests of time. You, as an ordinary inhabitant of the planet, like everyone else alive for the next 5 generations, will not exist on this planet anymore.
There is 0 chance that the opinion of "x country will never be trusted again" will occur as there is absolutely no control over the world you won't live in, nor have any significance of the elements involving discussions between countries happening today.
Those in charge at that time, who desire to achieve something, will.
Keep living the dream though, a few more years on this planet may hopefully help clarify the workings of this fact of life.
Maybe you will learn to look at things from other people's point of view someday. To an American, you are in the..."with friends like these, who needs enemies" category. You are literally impossible to please, an endless source of complains and slights and seem intent on destroying your own economies. If the US decides someday to not defend you, the only people to blame are yourselves. You have done everything in your power at every step to alienate Americans, over and over again for many decades. Seriously...not satire and I am not kidding at all.
If you want to hold a grudge for something that happened when no one is left alive when it occurred is on the individual. People who lead populations who desire something will achieve it regardless of the past.
Wasn't there a recent news cycle topic about the current US administration's cozying up to North Korea recently? Apparently so.. [0][1][2]
Wait, this is not true? Tell me that Germany is no longer involved in world economics because of the events in the 1940's. Or the Usa in 45, or Mongolia terroritial claims during the Khan era, or any other world event in the past that is no longer relevant.
It's true on the relationship between states while social effects linger for much longer. For example: there's still plenty of animosity from Polish people towards Germans, not in a violent way but more as a priori background distrust of German actions, any perceived transgression has a much bigger backlash than towards other nations due to history passed down by generations of people telling each other about the horrors their ancestors suffered.
It's the kind of thing that takes centuries to fizzle out, like between Denmark and Sweden, after 200-300 years the wars waged before that are mere historical artefacts used for jesting. If Denmark had been on the Axis-side willingly and tried to invade Sweden in the 1940s this would be a completely different relationship.
So yes, people will overcome historical grievances but it might take many generations, for us living right now it might not ever happen before we are dead.
I think the issue with this hypothesis is that it omits variables.
Basically... is the United States, scratch that, WILL the United States be on a trajectory, post-Trump, where there is reason to believe future leadership will consistently be trustworthy to foreign nations? And how would anyone know that, or at least have reasonable confidence in that belief?
What brought us here to elect someone like this, and is that "what" going away or being fixed? Is there some hope for undoing polarized politics in this country, so that "this election is the most important of our generation" doesn't occur every four years, and both sides believe that "the other side" will ruin the country once and for all?
Time is not enough to fix the core issues. Time can move us past this particular era, these particular instances of unpredictable leadership, but time alone will not move this country past whatever levers of control convinced this electorate that this kind of leadership was the right choice for this country -- and the rest of the planet.
Trump will go away. Eventually he will die. But he laid out a blueprint for ruling by executive decree. (Yeah, previous presidents did too, but he took it far further than anyone before him.) Sooner or later someone smarter than him will come along and do it better and even more successfully.
American democracy is eventually doomed, unless there are structural changes that make this kind of thing impossible to ever happen again. I predict a Democratic president and Congress in 2028. If they don't fix this, in the first two years, then limited government will not endure in the US. (Why two years? Because they probably won't have enough of a majority in Congress after the 2030 midterms. That's just how these things usually go.)
None of this is historically true at all. We learn history so we can have informed opinions about trends like this. Nixon was called the "imperial president" because he had more power than any US president since. After that, executive power was reduced significantly until Obama (who expanded it more than any president in US history). Yes, we can talk about why that was and there are reasons Obama did that, but he still did it. Trump just increased at bit over that.
PS They are called "Executive Orders". Decrees are things monarchs give so I expect you aren't an American which explains your lack of understanding of US politics.
> But he laid out a blueprint for ruling by executive decree.
Other presidents also extended the power of the executive branch and over-used executive orders. Of course, not to the extreme degree Trump did.
Trump's legacy will be his effective use of social media saturation and his "mask off" approach to rallying his base. Previous (R) administrations felt they had to maintain at least a little civility and be coy about the kind of people they were rallying, and cryptic about the kind of emotions that activated these people. You had to use innuendo and dogwhistles. Trump proved that you can directly preach to people's anger, belligerence, and cruelty, win elections based on those messages, and even maintain your popularity by delivering on your promises with oppressive, cruel policies. This lesson is going to be burned into politics long after he's gone: You don't have to even try to be a statesman to lead government.
