The sad thing is that damage has already been done. After Trump leaves office naturally or in disgrace, the rest of the world will never see the US the same again.
If the preceding presidents talk about human rights or illegal acts, the natural response would be 'you were ok with killing for a price or extreme right-wing or racist rhetoric before.'
They won't remember or point to Trump but to the country itself. Not only did they vote him in but also he represented the values of the country.
Now, that has been broken -- and in the future, positions taking the moral high-ground vis a vis other nations, groups or issues will only be seen as hypocritical or very short memory or delusional.
The US has lost its moral authority.
I tend to think that happened after the mess at abu gahrib (spelling?) was exposed.
We literally tortured people- and then we released legal memos that ok’d it. In some ways that was even worse. We got caught- and then we acted like it was OK.
During the same time, we also held people indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay (some of which didn’t do a damn thing) and operated numerous “black sites”.
To a lesser degree, we lost something before the W era atrocities and the recent rash of madness. I’d argue that we started to go down this road during and after the Vietnam era. Many here have pointed that out in a really good thread a day or two ago. Some of the stuff we did to civilians in that war was inexcusable. Yes, it’s war, so it’s a little different. But, I’d argue that it started there, and the W era just amped it up. And Trump completely took it off the rails- if we were ever on the rails at that point.
In short, I’d say we were far from pure after Vietnam, and the W era.
However, it’s pretty clear that those things happened in the background, and had to be brought to light. And, even though it may have taken a little time, there was a degree of repentance.
With this president, any facade of at least pretending to uphold certain morals/ideals is completely gone. Everything is transactional, and $$$ ruled everything- even if the $$$ claimed to be involved isn’t even a real amount.
I truly hope that the country rights itself and elects Trump’s opponent in a landslide. He barely won the first time , but it would send a huge message to everyone that we came to our senses if that happened. That’s really the only hope we have of salvaging what we think we can be (not what we’ve actually been, or could realistically be).
We did it after Vietnam by electing Carter. And we did it after W by electing Obama.
I am an optimist- I think that Trump’s defeat in 2020 will happen. Largely because it kind of already did in the mid terms recently. And because either the house committees or Mueller’s team is going to expose some really heinous chit. Which will make him act even more ridiculous. Side note- It’s amazing what we’ve overlooked to this point.
At that point, I see even some of his “base” turning against him. And like watergate, it’s going to be really hard to continue to support someone that is so compromised.
So, to your point, we’ve lost something. But we didn’t have as much to lose as we think we did.
