The world can never again trust the United States, because Americans have shown that Trump is a problem that their system is incapable of preventing or correcting. He is a recurring American possibility, and when he takes power, the country has no functioning ability to restrain him.

If he invades an allied nation, seizes its territory, or starts another illegal war, America will do what it is doing now. Republicans will cheer. The opposition will deliver long, near-eloquent speeches, often approaching something like passion, frequently accompanied by bristol-board charts and graphs. Lawyers will file. Pundits will furrow. Courts will be asked to do politics’ work. And the rogue president will keep moving.

They do not care enough when the United States illegally attacks countries they do not like. They do not care enough when a foreign leader and his family are killed without approval to start a war or due process of law. They do not care enough when more than a hundred little girls are slaughtered and then buried beneath the facade of national security. They do not care enough when American forces kidnap a foreign leader and his wife, in a foreign country, with no international warrant or UN collaboration, then call the abduction law enforcement. They do not care enough when billions are spent putting public relations lipstick on pigs. They do not care enough when Hegseth appears to be amusing himself by using the military to take pot shots at boats in the Caribbean. They do not care enough when US citizens are murdered on the streets by brute squads or shipped off to foreign gulags.

That is the lesson allies have learned. American outrage is loud, theatrical, intermittently sincere, and largely without consequence.

In Albania, people saw a crooked Trump-linked land grab aimed at a nature preserve and treated it like a national emergency.

In America, Trump is trying to steal the republic, and resistance still mostly arrives by appointment. Protests scheduled three weeks out so everyone makes time in their appointment calendars.

“We’ll be right out to fight your house fire ma’am!”, say the firemen, “How does two Tuesdays from tomorrow at noon work for you. We have a 1:30 appointment at a barn fire but we can probably move it.”

Indifference is the oxygen of Trump’s escalation. Like a child testing a weak parent, he pushes a little further each time to see what he can get away with. Americans sit watching with everything from delight to dread, but too few are willing to draw the line that would acknowledge the seriousness of their predicament.

And the world is absolutely entitled to assume that if Trump does invade an ally and seizes its sovereignty, some later American administration will simply inherit the crime, accept it as a fact on the ground, and move on. Biden already showed how easily Trump’s signature crimes against allies can be laundered into continuity. What he does now, he does as the President of the United States and they will not undo it. If they did they might lose some popularity points and besides they’ve never even been to Greenland, they might like it. And a ballroom? Who doesn’t want a ballroom? And Venezuelan oil tastes great, and it’s so much cheaper when you just take it.

So this post about “Americans” not trusting the Republican Party is flaccid and laughable. The Republican Party is not the world’s problem. Americans are.

Roughly a third of eligible Americans are aligned with what Trump is doing. Roughly a third have never seen the inside of a polling booth and, if they did, would probably vote for the tallest or best-looking candidate. The remaining third will divide themselves among Democrats, independents, procedural objections, stern letters, clever signs, and scheduled outrage — while still failing to muster anything capable of stopping the felon who is breaking laws and destroying America from within.

One third voted for the arsonist. One third stayed home. The final third is still writing letters to the fire department while the house burns.

Remember: Trump is aiming for a situation where, as he put it, “you will never have to vote again.”

The world heard him.

The question is:Why didn’t Americans?