Carol J. Williams is a retired foreign correspondent with 30 years' reporting abroad for the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press. She has reported from more than 80 countries, with a focus on USSR/Russia and Eastern Europe.
The U.S. image as a reliable ally and partner in global matters from health to arms control to human rights and democracy has suffered serious blows over the past four years of Trump’s transactional attitude toward security, trade and globalism.
Trump's pressing of his distorted view of dystopian America likely did little to capture those few undecided voters exhausted by four years of conflict and chaos.
“This president’s failure to manage the Covid-19 pandemic effectively, his failure to reduce the dire economic impacts, and his propensity to inflame rather than heal the deep divisions in this country have all contributed to a perception, among allies and adversaries alike, of an America that is in crisis, if not decline,” Michele Flournoy, former undersecretary for defense, in an interview with The New Yorker.
Most disturbing was the end when Pence dodged the question of what he would do if Trump loses the election and refuses to submit to a peaceful transition of power. Like Trump, his position is that they aren't going to lose. Not very reassuring in view of the double-digit deficit of the Trump-Pence ticket in the latest polls.
The pundits are predictably divided, with prominent Democrats expressing shame at the caustic disunity on display to a world worried about the future of America's democracy.
“Thanks to his disdainful attitude and his failures, our allies no longer trust or respect us, and our enemies no longer fear us” -- National Security Leaders for Biden
"It looks increasingly as if Mr. Putin is running out of tricks, and as if Alexander Lukashenko, his troublesome ally in Minsk, is running out of road. That is why, despite the Kremlin’s denials, they are falling back on the truncheon and the syringe." -- The Economist, Aug. 28, 2020
“Instead of making peace between Israel and the Palestinians, (Trump) is making peace around the Palestinians.” -- former State Department policy planning director Anne-Marie Slaughter on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS Sunday.
Images of armed agents in riot gear lobbing tear gas and stun grenades loom large in Trump’s latest campaign ads pressing his message of “law and order” and warning that Americans won’t be safe unless he is re-elected in November.