This is precisely it.

People in the US have been living with the insanity of Trump for so long that they have become numb to it, and don't realize just how crazy and out of bounds every day is now. We continue on, because we have to, but it's hard to reevaluate everything every single day because it's so crazy.

Europe and the rest of the world are making completely rational decisions in response to the utter self-destructive actions taking place by the entire US political system right now.

The US population has been cowed into complacence and numbness, but the rest of the world has not yet, and will take appropriate action.

> You’re assuming the people in charge are sane, rationale, and value past decisions that have worked out.

No, it's an assumption that the people discussing the subject are sane and rational. It's one thing to argue that the US devaluing its wildly overvalued dollar is an effective default. Nobody would disagree with that, that's why we did it - to give us the continual option for rugpulls. But it's simply delusional and unserious to insinuate that the US won't just print paper to pay off nominal debt. It costs the US absolutely nothing.

If the US doesn't do it and defaults, it props up the value of foreign-held treasuries by giving debtors a claim, it doesn't reduce it. We happily let the presses run since 2008, running up the stock market by nearly an order of magnitude, and didn't see a drop of inflation until the last presidential term.

Also, it's extremely weird that European elites think of NATO as some kind of local government. It's simply a US-invented and controlled institution that it used to pressure Russia (the US's competitor in a bipolar world), has had nothing but a corrosive effect in Europe, and now they do the job for free.

You're assuming NATO is somehow critical for the US. It is not.

NATO is critical for the European powers (those not named Russia). The US doesn't require it. The US doesn't need to defend Europe any longer. And it's clear the Europeans don't want the US there, so it works out great. Europe can boost its defense spending by ~$300 billion to make up the difference, or not, whatever they choose to do is up to them.

The US had the world's largest economy six decades before NATO existed. China is growing into a superpower entirely without a NATO-like participation. NATO is primarily beneficial to European stability. The US doesn't need NATO to defend itself at all.