> Right, black and white haha. Well if we are highly volatile, highly unreliable, and highly unreasonable why would we do anything besides whatever we decide to do? Can’t trust us, can’t reason with us, and can’t rely on us. In that case, who gives a shit about alliances with Europe?

So, what's the plan? The USA imperialistically conquers land of former allies and rules the world forever with force? All countries are forced to trade with the USA? Or will the USA just operate as an island? How is this gonna work?

I don't think you realize how bad things have already gotten. We're not at the level of Europeans or Canadians burning American flags and chanting "death to America" in the street yet, but we are definitely speedrunning towards that. According to polling a large majority of the countries in the world now see the USA as the biggest threat to world peace [0]. A lot of people have also come to simply really, really hate (most) Americans. The complacency and impotence in stopping the utter madness and stupidity (or worse, doubling down on it) are damning. I wish it were different.

[0] https://www.niradata.com/global-pulse-2026 ("Global threat" section)

> don’t forget, the US alongside anglosphere allies liberated Western Europe at the same time Japan was being fought

Let's not forget the Soviet Union, who did most of the actual heavy lifting of liberating Western Europe. If D-Day had never happened, the Soviets would have rolled right through Germany and then occupied France and the low countries. The Nazis would still have lost, but all of continental Europe would have been behind the iron curtain for the Cold War.

The anglosphere allies didn't defeat Germany so much as stop the Soviets from occupying Western Europe.

Again, we're talking about different things. What the OP understands "repair the damage" to mean, which I know because I've seen the expectation myself in the wild, is that the next administration can restore the 2024 status quo by just going on a really compelling apology tour. I don't think that's likely; we're still going to see Canadians boycotting random consumer goods, Europeans demanding that everyone should move off American tech ASAP, and countries in general being a lot less willing to negotiate for trade agreements the Americans can't credibly promise to keep.

> To be clear we operate a representative and stable democracy in the United States.

We most certainly do not, the system is just nicely setup to make us believe that this is the case. In 2020 for instance, we were given an amazing choice to choose between a senile grandpa and the most vile and corrupt human being ever to walk the earth. all us elections boil down to this, the establishment decides who their 'best one' is at any given time and you get to choose A vs. B. there isn't a single other country on the planet where this is the case that calls itself a democracy. it is one step removed from china and russia, we just get one more choice than they do :)

> To be clear we operate a representative and stable democracy in the United States.

It's not a representative democracy.

A representative democracy is one where all voters are represented in a branch of government.

The US system is exactly the opposite. It's a winner-takes-all democracy. At all levels. And worse, the executive represents only the half that voted him, the other half don't exist.

There's many other flaws in presidential and semi presidential republics but they are beyond the topic of representative democracies.

And no, the US is clearly not stable on foreign politics.

> You can't throw everything away after decades of helpful, and peaceful cooperation just because of 8 out of 12 years being annoying.

It's a decision that's been made in Washington to revert decades of successful cooperation. We're merely reacting to the new reality.

> That's not true and nobody has ever really treated it as such.

That's a very US-centric way of looking at this. American exceptionalism is cultural, it's not tied to a specific administration.

> I'm not sure the US has really executed 180 degree turns, but even so sometimes it's necessary to make abrupt changes because acting too slowly could be very dangerous.

You don't build international and economic relations with abrupt changes.

Business and diplomatic relations require predictability, stability, trust.

Also, be careful thinking that "acting slowly" is the worst that can happen in a mature democracy.

Giving individuals the capability of acting fast and with little limits might be the most dangerous one. Each presidential republic is merely waiting for the right Erdogan, Trump or Putin to break it.

I'd rather keep our slow and inefficient European democracies where prime ministers have to win the trust of the parliament and their own party every single day with all the bad that comes with it, if the alternatives are what I see around the world.