Even with tons of talented and well-intentioned people and everyone fully aligned to re-build everything broken, it'd take decades to rebuild that trust that was lost in a matter of weeks.
America's been in that mode for a long time.
If the empire doesn't have any cities and counties, it must have already collapsed.
US is a third world country, but Americans do no want to admit that.
So why do so many people want to keep coming here?
People aren't coming for the scenic canyons, they're coming to get some of that USA money, so they can be on the benefitting side of the skewed exchange rate, instead of the losing side. Many of them exchange part of their salary for their home currency and send it home, in quantities that would be impossible to accrue if you did the same work in that country.
They don't, in fact, at least not anymore:
"We estimate that net migration was between –10,000 and –295,000 in 2025, the first time in at least half a century it has been negative."
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/macroeconomic-implication...
Politicians and folks in the third world are not keen on developing their own countries. Clean water, clean energy, better education, less corruption are not something they are striving for. Politicians there want to make money for generations, while sending their kids to US/UK/EU for studies, while at the same time selling bad policies for public (freebies, this or that scheme just to garner power to make more money off looting via contracts, natural resources).
There is some truth to this. Other examples of crossing the line and breaking long-term trust would be:
To Canada: Statements about Canada last year.
To Europe: The idiocy around Greenland earlier this year
To the Middle East: Current events.
Things have definitely accelerated in the second term, but it's not like there weren't signs that political leaders definitely noticed were disruptive, even if the wider public weren't as aware at the time.
Ie real actual legal liability. Line up anyone who did insider trading, the doge guys, the big mouths in the big house, and put them through a zero tolerance military tribunal.
No bullshit kangaroo court where they're let off with a slap on the wrist because they're rich.
I mean strip every last one of these motherfuckers of everything they're worth. 180 the kangaroo court. Make a public mockery of them. Posters everywhere.
Think of it as a peace offering for the rest of the world. We could even include the war on terror guys in there, all the liars who claimed WMDs could go to the same federal prison. No cushions.
The rest of the world would then take a wait and watch approach.
Besides, even getting to that point would need to mean that this situation would not arise again.
Agreed, as I have said before (1) even if the next administration is very different, that has happened before in 2020-2024. The lesson that the USA just is a country that does this from time to time. Expecting it to happen a third time is reasonable. Wait and watch would be an appropriate response.
Forfieted any remaining goodwill.
(Post 9/11, It would have been so easy to choose the other path.)
Trump just made it undeniable.
The republic may be collapsing. The empire comes after. The rich benefit if we transition to an autocratic empire based on American military might.
I think the roman republic to empire transition doesnt have much to do with the trajectory of rome at all. Their institutions were still strong. With america, her institutional knowledge is being stripped apart. Thats hard to pull up from
Based on which contemporaneous source? Personally, this feels like Cicero. Not Caligula.
Trump urges US allies to send warships to Strait of Hormuz as Iran vows to retaliate https://apnews.com/article/iran-iraq-us-trump-march-15-2026-...