alt Hacker NewsThink of it this way:
You loan a friend $5k. They promise to pay it back. They don't.
You may still hang out! But you may never loan them money again unless they give meaningful evidence they've changed.
The US probably has one concrete chance left to prosecute, convict, and jail these folks to rebuild trust. My vibe from the Democrats is that they'll whiff that opportunity.
But...countries, individuals, and companies the world over are loaning the US money right now. They're trading with the US, they're doing joint military exercises, they're forming new alliances, they're visiting the US, they're sending their kids to school here, they're buying real estate here.
Don't get me wrong, I loathe Trump and what his band of nutjobs has done to this country. The damage is deep and long-lasting.
But we're not quite yet a global pariah that no one will touch with a ten foot pole, nor are we (as some other commenter hilariously suggested) a failed state. Not yet. Not really even close.
Honestly, these discussions usually look more to me like what people wish was true, probably because they're both angry and powerless, than any kind of sober assessment of reality.
All that said, it'll be interesting to look back on this moment in a decade or two and see where it was going. History is notoriously difficult to predict.
EDIT in response to your links below: of course these all have been impacted!
We're talking about the claim that "Nobody and no country will trust the US or their commitments ever again."
Which is nonsensical, as proven by all your handy stats showing that many, many people, companies, and countries still trust the US.