For Joe Reeve, the midterm afterglow faded fast.

The London startup founder was among the wave around the Trump-weary world awakening to the stunning news that Americans had sharply rejected President Donald Trump’s fist-in-the-eye stewardship of the United States that had started a war with Iran, forged no peace in Ukraine or the Mideast and made gas and food so expensive.

Voters, Reeve saw online, had flipped control of both houses of Congress, handing the power to check the president to his rival Democrats. American democracy, 250 years on, had survived the Trump era.

But a deep and profound distrust of the United States had survived the vote, too. And from national leaders to aspiring American immigrants, no one seemed confident that change was afoot.

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[–] 2 points 1 day ago

Very tricky. It's a difficult road back to international accord, or at least what most Americans and Europeans thought of as international accord even though it was pretty spicy for everybody else.

But I think people in this thread are overestimating how long people's memories are. Tricky doesn't have to be long. I'm not convinced the Democrats have the momentum or frankly savvy to fully fix things, but I could be wrong. If in ten years people in the US and Europe look back and say "Damn, those were crazy times, but I'm glad we got that tariff thing sorted out," I'm not going to be shocked.

I do think the Republicans getting taken behind the woodshed is important not just because the Democrats are more globalist (which they are) but because it's proving that as crazy as things get, the US still has to play by the rules with regard to democratic elections, which have here sort of acted as a final safety valve.

I do think it's nearly impossible that the US will ever have the sort of military power it formerly had as Europe continues to weigh its options, which... good.

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