yes and the results and actions taken after the Nov 6 US elections may undo some of the damage. But no other country will ever trust the foreign policy of the US no matter what happens.
I think it is deeper, that these actions were taken at the top and a sizable amount of the people sided with them, that sends the message that the US cannot be trusted long term, it has become cultural. I get that it isnt a majority of people but it is big enough that it cannot be ignored.
Not trusting the Americans was a French thing ever since De Gaulle. It just took the rest of the Europeans 50 years after his death to pick up on it.
He might not have the best domestic moves but when it comes to Geopolitics, he is all over it.
You're assuming that 1) the elections will actually occur on Nov 6, 2) the elections will be fair, and 3) that the winners of said elections would take action and actually enforce the rule of law.
I'm not confident in any of those.
Hopefully a lot of the fears don't pan out but we won't know until it gets closer.
I'm not saying that there aren't better options but both major parties are complicit in how the system is organised. The US electoral system gets ever more distorted with every minor adjustment in the hopes of swinging various seats in their favour and now it just looks ridiculous.
Germany seems to have recovered quite a lot of trust following World War 2, to provide an extreme example of bad foreign policy.
> Do you think there will be a deep national reckoning about what happened?
About half of the people I know who voted for Trump this past election have deep regrets.
Trump's second term should be the end of the Republican party. But if Bush II is an indication, the pattern was that while people gradually came around to seeing what a bad idea the Iraq War was and whatnot, they merely cooled off for a few years but then were right back at it getting fooled again a slightly different way. How much of the support for Trump was basically recycled criticism of the Iraq War (ie of the Republican establishment) ? And yet here we are now, with a nice shiny new quagmire (assuming it isn't an outright loss).
fwiw I'm a libertarian so while I actually agree with much of the criticism, it galls me even more how people can start with very individual-liberty-centric criticisms, but then somehow gleefully jump behind supporting authoritarianism when it can be their turn at the trough.
Innocent people, including children, are dead. Republicans have done irreparable harm to this country on every imaginable level: civil liberties, trade, global power, economics. Open and naked corruption is so off the charts it can only be described with comparisons to the post-Soviet era.
"Regret" is, quite frankly, insulting.
L-fucking-O-L
What did they expect?
Or do they just regret that they were fooled by this guy, specifically? That he's not accomplishing his stated goals, whether or not he is taking his promised actions? If it's this one, then it's only a matter of time before another charlatan does the same thing better.
The Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) was staffed by many ex SS officers.
Nuremberg Trails are continuously trotted out as an example of a system that works, but 200k people are estimated to have participated in crimes against humanity, of which only around 6700 were convicted, or 3.3%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Saevecke
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Dickopf
https://www.waz.de/politik/article4512500/die-braunen-jahre-...
https://www.warrelics.eu/forum/history-research-third-reich-...
https://www.jvl.levit.dev/the-prosecution-of-war-criminals
https://us.cnn.com/2018/12/14/europe/germany-nazi-war-trials...
It took two generations and a new constitution for Germans to regain trust again.
You cannot trust the current generation of U.S. Americans, and the U.S. Constitution certainly does not alleviate that concern. They elect a god-king like president who seemingly has unlimited authority. Why would you trust such a country for more than four years?
Edit:
> but after, I'm not even sure what exactly
Killing people outside the USA left and right without due process? Starting a war and thinking that it is fun while the whole world is suffering because of that war? Kidnapping a head of state? Cosying up to the enemy of your allies during a war? Threatening allies? Declaring parts of an allied country as your own? Supporting Nazis in allied countries? Supporting separatism in a province of your neighbor (and until recently your closest ally)? Proudly telling the world what country the USA will assault next? ...