America will never regain the credibility they have lost

[GloiredeDijon]

AIBU to believe that come what may America has lost all credibility in the world and even if they eventually unseat the current regime nobody will trust them ever again, or at the very least for a very, very long time indeed.

US is seeing high gasoline prices, up 22% in last few weeks.

That'll hit his popularity even further...

So even if he wished for a 3rd term, he wouldn't win it.... anyway hopefully the stupid idiot wont be around by then.

They can get very rich from post-war reconstruction though. Disaster capitalism and all that...

To paraphrase Carl Saga, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"

In this case, an extraordinary assertion needs an extraordinary cause. And distressing though current events are, they are mere pranks, compared to real evil. Just your everyday repression and brutalisation.

It's telling so few picked up the reference. It's hardly obscure.But ti does show who's reading.

I think there will be people waiting to get out there for the next Presidential race, but the drawn-out system of primaries, then election, and way of electing the president on personality, separately from the local representatives, means you don’t want to announce your run too early. It gives your opposition time to tear you down, and it spreads your campaign funding over too long a period to be effective.

The economist reported that 90% of Venezuelans were grateful to Trump whilst being sceptical as to his motives.

The Meganálisis CATI survey, conducted Jan. 6–11 poll was based on answers from 1006 Venezuelans. An analysis of the results is more nuanced that the slant of what you have chosen to quote.

The Democrats should have gone for Bernie in 2016. Hilary is a perfectly competent politician but the American electorate is too sexist to elect a female president, especially when a lot of them are sufficiently misogynistic to blame her for Bill's affairs.

Bernie on the other hand is a rare thing in the US - a politician who actually works for the betterment of the American people.

The current president is a puppet with dementia who recently called the [female] Irish President "he".

The thing is that it was always intended to be a living document - being revised every 20 years or so in response to changing circumstances. That didn't work out in practice. The last amendment to be ratified was in 1992, and that one had spent about 200 years sitting on the books.

Sadly though, Bernie is way too far left to get such a mandate. That would not have worked either.

Hilary was always a weird choice of candidate IMO. Not just because she's a woman, and we know they are sexist AF, but because she's so widely disliked.

I've always thought the equivalent would be like Cherie Blair trying to get elected. Competent and capable, but being so unanimously disliked would always put you so far behind.

The only democrats I've seen publicly talking sense are Newsom, AOC and Jasmine Crockett, but I don't think any of them would have a hope of getting anywhere. But they are young, dynamic, and seem to genuinely care.

The real question we should all be asking is how the hell in a population of 360 million, were the only two possibilities two dementia-ridden pensioners?

People have short memories, I think it depends on what follows trump

I'd love to see us and our natural Allies (European countries, Australia, Canada etc) move towards a new future without reliance on the States. Carney's suggestion of how powerful the 'middle powers' could be is very compelling

As opposed to Biden who called his health secretary ‘she’ - and that wasn’t even a mistake.

The fact prohibition could be enacted by the constitution, whilst abortion could not be guaranteed says all you need to know.

And the US can never outrun it's genesis in evil. It was established as a tax haven for a bunch of landed gentry who managed to con the populace into thinking they were somehow achieving "freedom". How that relates to 2026 remains a mystery to many.

There's no comparison to Germany and Japan after WWII. They were defeated and rebuilt in the image of the victorious powers after the war. The fact is that the US has been badly damaged. There will always be the threat of another Trump.

The US has too much power in the world, and that suited its allies until it didn't. The US is in a similar position to Britain in the early 20th Century. It's now hard to believe that Britain was once the pre-eminent superpower in the world.

We’ll see who comes next and what it means first everyone. Possibly China.

There's still a functional difference, Biden was intelligent, experienced, and competent but showing effects of being older, while being surrounded my mostly intelligent and qualified people he placed there.

Trump is an incompetent moron, surrounded by unintelligent right wing celebrities and other morons, and also old and getting senile on top with nobody who would care about that.

It isn't that the first situation is perfect, but anyone who pretends it was as bad of a situation as Trump instantly tells you all you need to know about that person.

Yes. Biden got flustered when he was talking, but that doesn't mean he didn't have a full understanding of what was going on around him. Sometimes older people need more time to express their thoughts. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with those thoughts in the first place.

I think America could regain its footing if it were to conduct some South-Africa-style 'Truth and Reconciliation' type programme if they ever get Trump and his cronies out (two big ifs)

It would need to imprison everyone who'd broken laws and illegally profiteered, and this would include ICE agents, government officials and business people.

It would need to change laws and processes so people with criminal charges against them can't stand for President, people who try to overturn legal election results can't stand for President, and also institute a maximum age for Presidential candidates (yes, I'm talking about Biden too - I don't think he had dementia or anything, but he was too old to be effective as President) and Supreme Court Justices.

That might have been the case the first time, but this is the second time so we've now seen how even if they elect a sensible president in 2028 they could have another idiot in 2032. Only constitutional change will restore confidence.

Donald "grab them by the pussy" Trump is no friend of women. He very much believes in allowing men (so long as they're rich enough) into female changing rooms. He boasted about brazenly walking into the dressing room at the beauty pageant he owned - just because he could - and got a sick thrill out of how uncomfortable the teenage girls were.

Have a word with yourself.

TBH i'd prefer that a 1000 times than an idiot who conspired to bomb Iran and now, blow up a gas facility without any idea on how that would affect markets and energy costs.
He is like a toddler given a hand gun.

This total moron is wrecking the world economy & killing 1000s before our very eyes and there is nothing we can do to stop him.

It's not just this. In both Japan and Germany the ideology which led to their actions in WW2 was comprehensively defeated and there followed a decades-long period of genuine atonement for it.

Trump might go, peacefully or otherwise, alive or otherwise, but the MAGA thinking is still there and I struggle to envision any kind of atonement from a ideologically-driven group who would be more likely to attempt a coup d'état, not least because that's what they did last time.

The US is actually more similar to Britain in 2017 - a nation of extremely diminished power that doesn't believe it and hasn't really accepted it, and tries to remould its place in the world from a position of weakness, which only harms itself.

Donald "grab them by the pussy" Trump is no friend of women.

He prefers girls.

If only the US was a diminished power, its far from that, a nuclear super power, a huge military, a very strong economy.....

.....and a deranged cretin at the helm.

I’m not sure America is capable of that level of insight sadly.