We've also lifted the veil on the myth that we were a unstoppable military power. We look silly saying, day after day, that the war is over, they're powerless, etc while the same channel shows that's not true.

The folks least impressed right now are China and Russia, who must surely see a new system of regional powers operating in their own spheres, not a single global power which is apparently a historical fiction.

The excellent book, Clash of Civilizations predicted this move to regional powers versus the 50's simple East/West divide, along with many other current events we see now. It was written 30 years ago.

Lots of Americans don't get it yet but what we're living through is the end of what was sometimes called the "post-war international order" that began in 1945. America's allies in western Europe have been deliberately alienated and our electorate has shown itself to be too volatile, unpredictable, and frankly dumb to elect a trustworthy government.

Intelligence-sharing from countries once, and still sort of nominally, our allies has been curtailed because no one can trust that information shared with us won't make its way to other countries that do not wish them well. That trust will take decades to rebuild if in fact it can be, and by that time, the world will be a very different place.

The current administration is in the grip of religious fanatics with delusional, apocalyptic views of the world, as is much of the political party they come from. Nobody sensible trusts people like that, nor should they. It will take a generation to remove these people from political power, and it's far from clear that a majority of the electorate even wants to.

Meanwhile, the US is gutting the science and education infrastructure that was rightly the envy of the world and making itself hostile to immigrants from nearly the entire world, when being a draw to the best and brightest served it so well for so long. Again, damage being done in a matter of years will take decades to recover from.

It's not time to pack it in but it is time to recognize that America does not now and will in all likelihood never again hold the place in the world it did from 1945 to 2017. The America that most adults alive now grew up in is gone and the one their children and grandchildren will inhabit will likely be much diminished.

Didn't have to happen but that's where we are and we brought it on ourselves.

FAFO USA - With Love, Canada

The fact that the protagonist in this lament ever thought that the US was even once considered benevolent is risible.

That's the problem with USAian politicians and bureaucrats.

They have no education, no cultural knowledge, and lack the ability and the desire to understand the other side. They always act as if they don't have to OR project their own malicious intentions onto others.

We should give credit to Trump for ripping off the thin mask of US "diplomacy."

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I think if the GOP looses big in 2026 to the point Trump can be impeached and removed from office and his minions are convicted for corruption, I think it will recover. I believe the world is waiting for Nov 2026 before making big changes.

If that does not happen, I would say the article is 100% true.

So the story is... a publication that opposes the party currently in power, quoting a few people from the side that's presently out of power, saying that their being out of power is really bad, and we may never recover?

How is this different than the whining we get when the roles are reversed?

I realize you folks hate each other, but it would be nice if either of you could talk about something without turning it into a rant about how great, noble and good your side is and how awful the other side is.

Admitting it can wain admits the concepts of waxing and waining, which admits the concept of waxing. It could rise again. it depends how bad the other choices become exploiting their new found international reputation.

Also, it was built on useful largesse. I think the beginning of the end to me (I am sure it predates this, but this is when I became more conscious of it) was when the funding of the UN dried up because militant american christianity hates women's reproductive rights. That was a massive flip in posture towards a rational approach to improved health in Africa and for what? For a short term domestic agenda. The UN systematic corruption and money laundering was a huge issue but what motivated the change wasn't "cleaning up the UN" it was putting contraception back in the box.

[edit: "this century" meaning "in the last 25 years" because during the Vietnam era, American reputation was pretty low worldwide. I keep forgetting we're in a new century. The war on sex was President-pro-tem Nancy Reagan era stuff.]

People often prioritize "reputation" over other things, as if it is politically actionable or tangible. It's not, and it's a projection of peoples' personal feelings onto the actions of a nation-state. Honestly, it's odd behavior. To identify with a nation-state so strongly to care about it's "reputation" over actual material measures. It's parasocial and indicitave of people treating politics as a consumer form of entertainment, and not something they engage in in their daily lives. As if you were a foreign diplomat, might be the only time "reputation" mattered in the way that people talk about it.