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Posted on 08/18/2026 8:41:44 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
MAGA: “Make America Great Again.” That was U.S. President Donald Trump’s promise to the American people. Elect him, and the country would recover its mojo and return to a golden age of internal harmony, economic vitality, domestic sovereignty, and global influence. It was a seductive vision, especially for those Americans who had been buffeted by globalization and believed that immigrants and “globalists” were undermining the country from within.
As Trump’s second term nears the midway point, there can be little doubt that he is one of the most consequential presidents in U.S. history. Unfortunately, almost all the consequences of his actions have been harmful, not just for most people in the United States but also for America’s relative power and standing in the world. His cronies and family members may be reaping the benefits, but the cumulative impact of his actions will be not a return to greatness, but a weaker and more divided America.
Let me count the ways.
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
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Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.
“A COMMUNIST” AT ..........
So, they bite pillows?
Since the article is behind a paywall, I’ll just summarize the other nine ways the author believes Trump made the USA Weaker.
2. Reducing U.S. military capability.
Despite spending unprecedented sums, boasting of the United States’ “lethality,” and making sure male troops have enough testosterone, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have made the country’s military forces weaker and undermined the U.S. ability to deter attacks on its partners.
How? By starting a foolish war with Iran, depleting stockpiles of critical weaponry, and keeping ships, squadrons, and service personnel on station for months on end, reportedly leading to a wave of suicide attempts. These actions have burned through valuable military capacity to no good purpose, showed potential adversaries where the country’s vulnerabilities are, and eroded service members’ morale in potentially tragic ways.
3. Dismantling diplomatic capacity.
Under Rubio’s leadership at the State Department, the United States has unilaterally withdrawn from more than 60 international organizations, even as China keeps expanding its involvement in them. He has closed consulates and offices abroad and left dozens of ambassadorships empty. A comprehensive survey conducted by the American Foreign Service Association found that 98 percent of respondents reported low morale and 86 percent said these actions were impairing their ability to do their jobs. The title of the report says it all: The country’s diplomatic institutions are “at the breaking point.”
4. Undermining U.S. scientific preeminence.
Leadership in science and technology has long been one of the foundations of the United States’ global power. As China clearly understands, scientific prowess will be even more important in the future. What has Trump done in response to this challenge? He has cut federal support for a wide range of scientific research, attacked universities on spurious grounds, appointed ignorant and unqualified science skeptics (such as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) to key positions, amplified their false claims through his own statements and social media blasts, appointed a nonscientist as his scientific advisor, and actively encouraged the belief that ignorance is preferable to knowledge and expertise.
5. Missing the green transition.
A related blunder stems from Trump’s long-standing climate change denialism, his opposition to renewable energy, and his steadfast commitment to burning more fossil fuels. This is lunacy, as anyone who has read the literature on this subject or paid attention to long-term climate trends knows. Not only will this lead to more serious climate problems, more climate-related deaths, and much human suffering, but Trump’s policies have ensured that China will dominate the green technologies of the future (solar, wind, batteries, etc.) while the U.S. dominates the smokestack technologies of the 19th century.
6. Eroding the rule of law.
Trump’s contempt for laws and rules is well-documented, and he has gone to great lengths to insulate himself from any sort of legal constraint while using the legal system to conduct vendettas against individuals who have had the misfortune to have incurred his ire. The confirmation of his personal attorney, the infinitely accommodative Todd Blanche, as U.S. attorney general is merely the latest step in this campaign. His efforts have been aided by an ideologically aligned and compliant Supreme Court, which has checked his actions on a handful of occasions but mostly blessed and empowered them.
7. Threatening electoral integrity.
Democracy depends on free and fair elections, and on citizens’ belief that the results accurately reflect the ballots cast. From the very beginning, Trump has sowed doubts about the integrity of the electoral system, most notoriously in his baseless and oft-repeated claim that he actually won the 2020 election. Indeed, the most clear-cut example of electoral misconduct was Trump’s own effort to reverse his defeat in 2020 by encouraging an angry mob to storm Congress, pressuring state election officials to find more votes for him, and trying to get former Vice President Mike Pence to violate his oath and refuse to certify the results. If you want evidence of real electoral fraud, look no further.
8. Abandoning checks and balances.
The growing power of the executive branch didn’t begin with Trump, and some of the forces that have accelerated that process during his second term—such as congressional fecklessness and a Supreme Court stacked in favor of a unitary executive—were present before he was reelected in 2024. And he’s hardly the first president who resented the limits on their authority and wished they could just do what they wanted without having to get congressional approval and judicial backing.
9. Abandoning civil discourse.
More than anyone else, Trump is responsible for the coarsening and vulgarity of U.S. political discourse. It’s partly his willingness and ability to lie shamelessly—a trait that has infected most of the Republican Party—but it is also his reliance on vulgar insults; violent rhetoric; rambling rants portraying opponents as criminals, traitors, or worse; and his all-too-evident contempt for half of the citizens of the country.
10. Torching U.S. soft power.
Put all these things together, and the result is a real-time collapse of the United States’ once considerable “soft power.” Although Trump is popular with a few like-minded politicos (mostly in Latin America), overall, the United States has taken a remarkable tumble in the eyes of most of the world. Its flawed democratic system no longer commands admiration, its eroding infrastructure depresses foreign visitors instead of dazzling them, and Trump’s predatory policies have alienated countries that were once among the most pro-American in the world (such as Canada and Denmark).
I posted this article so that readers here in FR can post their refutations. Have at it!
Successful nuclear deal with Iran?
Illegal aliens are “immigrants?”
This idiot is so full of shiite his eyes are brown.
The Squat to pee pillow biters
Jaw is a little sore and the
Cross dressers Stillettos pinch.
So, in other words, another retarded Harvard anti-Semite bum.
Burcha Sales are “Thru the Roof!”
First of all, what exactly was all this cooperation that we got from other nations before Trump became President?
Second, I have no reason to believe predictions from the sort of foreign policy "experts" we find at places like Harvard. Case in point: When Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem in his first term. The "experts" all said not to do that, because they warned it would result in violence. Democrat and Republican administrations heeded those "experts". I think I can guess what Stephen M. Walt predicted.
Well, that was quite eloquent.
Thank you.
The article reeks of TDS.
Most of those items on that list are about things in which Walt has no expertise whatsoever, e.g. climate change and green energy. They are the kinds of talking points one gets from reading the NY Times and they are totally idiotic. In fact, that’s likely where he got them.
What a load of Codswallop.
That is under his "Eroding the rule of law" heading. The Biden administration worked with and directed state and local prosecutors to go after Trump (for things that were not crimes) in order to jail him or at a minimum prevent him from running for President again. That is a far more blatantly political use of prosecutions than anything the Trump has done and it's not even close. This lunatic Walt is fine with that.
Thanks for the list, and the writer isn’t a serious person, much of the list is high school level activist opinions.
Pure, unadulterated fecal matter...
Communist propaganda...
Sorry...
Weird Day
But what is the REALITY?
Iran can only try to fight the PR war because that’s all they’ve got.
They are hoping that enough Americans will value the price of their groceries and gas over concerns about their having nuclear weapons and controlling the delivery of energy. In this, they’re succeeding somewhat.
They’re not succeeding on guys like me, but I’m not certain if I am the majority or minority in the USA.
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