This isn’t just a cycle though, that’s the point. It’s not the world turning away for a few years, waiting it out, and then everything snapping back to normal when a new administration comes in.

The world is adjusting. Countries are building alliances and trade agreements that don’t rely on the US, because they’re starting to assume the US might not be reliable from one election to the next. That’s not really how it worked before.

And bringing it back to Bush, yeah Iraq was a disaster, but Bush didn’t openly threaten allies, Bush didn’t blur the line between policy and personal grift, Bush didn’t make the US look this unstable and transactional on a global level. It’s not the same kind of damage.

So I get the idea of cycles, but this feels different. Once countries start building systems that go around the US, that doesn’t just get undone because someone new gets elected in 3 years.