Comment by surgical_fire

> Even as Trump started getting aggressive, I kept trying to tell myself: "Well, these other countries surly know that most of the population doesn't support this. Surely they know we are fans of liberalism, democracy, and human rights

A huge proportion of your electorate is actually not only fine with the current direction, but actively cheer on this.

> One bad election, everyone knows it was influenced by Russia, no big deal. They know a sane person will be elected in a few years."

This sounds a lot worse than you imagine. We will be always one election away of anothe asshole that will want to leveraged the US relative strength to cause harm. Better to not keep strengthening it.

> 100+ years of debatably good behavior, why shouldn't we be selfish?

I almost choked at this.

The US has a long history of fucking over other countries.

The only thing that changed is that it just decided to be more direct about it, even with former allies.

I actually prefer it this way.