Okay, so let me state right off the bat, that this is an old poll.
That said, I think ti is telling that in all but two countries (Israel and, perhaps not surprisingly, Russia), people around the world simply do not trust Trump anywhere near as much as they trusted his predecessor.
Of course, if you look at this man, Trump, and know all of the nonsense that he has said, and just try to count the number of times that he has lied and/or given misleading statements, you can see why, surely.
After all, that whole argument that he simply (and rather conveniently) "misspoke" in front of Putin during their summit in Helsinki, and then cleaned up and made clear what he allegedly meant to say there once back home, and no longer in front of Putin, seems downright laughable. There are so many damn incidents like this with this man, when he says or does something that seems, on the surface as well as on a deeper level, to be outrageous and/or prejudice and/or a sign that he is simply just a terrible person, that you have to be willfully ignorant or stupid to ignore them all and pretend this guy is a model citizen of some sort. Isolated by itself, maybe that incident would be excusable. But the fact that he contradicted his own statement in Helsinki, and then has since contradicted his contradiction, is pretty much par for the course with this man. And who can ignore so many of his other despicable sentiments? Who can simply wave off his suggestion, in announcing his candidacy for the 2016 White House run, that Mexicans are "criminals" and "rapists," or physically making fun of a disabled reporter, or threatening violence on opponents, or suggesting that there were "good people" marching for the white supremacist cause alongside Nazis in Charlottesville, or literally resorting to name-calling towards another world leader, while threatening to wipe his entire country out and boasting that his nuclear button is bigger, or yesterday's ridiculous, all-caps tweet threatening Iran (Wag the Dog, anybody?).
And those are only a handful of the things that this pathetic excuse for a leader has said and/or done that undermines his credibility the world over, especially to anyone who has an ounce of objectivity, or who actually thinks a little bit deeper about any of these issues.
Of course, Trump always can, and often does, claim to be joking. He was just joking when he suggested that the United States should do as North Korea does in picking a president for life. He claimed that he was not serious when he threatened North Korea and was calling Kim Jung-un "little rocket man," claiming he was embarrassed to do so. Recently, he even suggested (and I will finish a blog about this later today or tomorrow) that opponents had better "take it easy" in their criticisms of him, which seems, at best, like a veiled threat.
Apparently, that kind of ridiculous nonsense flies in the United States, with it's present political climate. But the rest of the world understandably takes these things, and this man's wild boasts and false and misleading statements very seriously. And they see a danger that, apparently tens of millions of Americans do not, because they supposedly do not take everything that Trump says seriously, but they take the man very seriously, in theory.
The rest of the world does not buy it, nor should they. Trump has been around for over seven decades, and he now has the status as the most powerful leader in the world. Yes, that certainly means that his words and sentiments need to be measured and judged, and to be taken seriously. What the rest of the world sees is a man in such a high position who still does not seem to understand that, and they are right to see all of this and find this man left wanting. Trump is no longer a child, although he certainly acts the part. This is a world where we should not run away from adult responsibilities, and seeing a man with such a monumental ego, and no apparent sense of responsibility (nothing is ever his fault, is it?) is not going to endear you to any serious adults. The rest of the world sees his stomping, rowdy crowds and they grow alarmed, as well they should. Nor does the rest of the world buy it, as again tens of millions of Americans buy it, when this man makes wild claims (making Mexico pay for the wall, or bringing back the dying coal industry), or when he automatically labels any criticism of him or his administration's actions as "fake news."
That is why America's reputation has taken such a serious hit, ever since Trump won the 2016 presidential election, and especially since he revealed rather quickly that he would remain ever the man-child once in office. It is sobering, and frankly, frightening, that someone like this is in the position that he is. It is horrifying to think that a man who shows some serious signs of being violently unstable has access to the nuclear codes, frankly, especially when he threatens countries like North Korea and Iran so casually.
This is a dark time in this nation's history. We have a leader who is so clearly unfit to rule, and a majority of Americans know it. The tragedy is that so many of them - particularly but not exclusively Republicans who are riding the wave of his election victory and popularity among his base of supporters - are so willing to pretend that this is not a problem, or that it is not nearly as bad as so many of us are relentlessly pointing out that it clearly is. Again, the rest of the world is viewing what is happening here with genuine horror, and that is something that the United States will likely have to endure and pay for in the many decades to come.
The rest of the world rightly sees this as the nightmare that it truly is. Why do so many tens of millions of Americans exempt themselves from seeing things as they truly are?
Trump says he inherited a mess. What's the world think?
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