Electile Dysfunction (Current students plz look!)

[G.Irish]

Also, you can say that what the president says doesn't matter much, but I can assure you that you are wrong.  The rest of the world absolutely looks at what America says and does and it in turn influences their actions.  Many other nations trust the United States to do what's right most of the time, which is what holds our military alliances together.  It's why other nations share intelligence with us, it's why other nations depend on our economic systems, it's why other nations model their justice systems after ours, it's why other nations cooperate with us in law enforcement, it's why other nations agree to treaties with us.  

What Trump is doing is eroding the world's trust in America to be moral and just.  People may think that this trust is a worthless thing, but they don't know what a world without trust looks like.  The United States is less safe if we know less about our adversaries because we're not trusted with intel.  Our economy is weaker if we get cut out of free trade agreements.  We are less safe if we can't depend on our law enforcement partners to help us with transnational crime.

And now with this worldwide surge in right-wing nationalism, having the president of the United States openly spouting racist and white nationalist rhetoric absolutely makes the world a worse place

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that outside of our economic influence, most of the world doesn't really give a shit about what we do. At least in my experience traveling and talking to folks. I think as Americans we have taught ourselves or rather "hyped" ourselves into thinking that world revolves around us and that everything we do the rest of the world takes notice. In reality, when president CHEETO is banging out whatever nonsense via twitter the world just says:

Sorry but you are wrong. Maybe the man on the street doesn't care, but foreign governments absolutely pay attention to what we do. Some of our intelligence partners have already pulled back on sharing with our government because they are afraid that Trump is compromised. Some of those same intelligence partners are how we've been able to interrupt terror plots, neutralize counterintelligence threats, and conduct offensive operations against adversaries. Indeed it was our Dutch intelligence allies who helped us identify and stop a cyberattack against State Department while I was there.

When our military is out there conducting joint operations, foreign fighters have to trust that we'll keep up our end of the bargain. If they don't trust our word, it makes it far more difficult to conduct military action around the world. People risk their lives to act as interpreters for our forces, or as informants, or to fight alongside us. When people don't trust us, that goes away. When we renege on promises to help those who helped us, how willing are others going to be to help us in the future?

In law enforcement, if other countries can't trust our word, they will not extradite criminals to us. People may not know it, but US federal LE do a lot of coordinating with foreign agencies to disrupt organized crime around the world, from the DEA, to the FBI, to US Marshals.

And bottom line is that countries like Russia and terrorist organizations always jump at the opportunity to capitalize on American misdeeds for their propaganda. 'See! They're no better than us!'