The problem that US is facing is the loss of credibility over time. It reminds me of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. US doesn't have the credibility to convince the world anymore, even if the threat is real..
There is a lot of rebuilding the US has to do. First fix the politics which is rife with petty interests, lobbying, political imbalance very skewed towards corporations over citizens, extreme polarization, 2 party system, hypocrisy,etc..
But all that, with great effort, can be fixed. A purge is needed, not just try to shove the dirt under a carpet and pretend all is nice and dandy.
The other thing that has happened is the internet and the free flow of information. It is no longer the case of manipulating 3-4 media outlets. People get their information at thousands of different places. I think its not really a loss of credibility, but the normalization of credibility based on a huge pool of information, rather than a restricted one.
I was referring to past actions of the US that proved to be unjustified and disastrous: WMDs in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc.. This is related to the normalization of credibility based on information ubiquity, but I think it's mainly US's actions speaking for themselves. After the WWII us has become a policing force that more or less , with the exception of the Vietnam war, wasn't as active in foreign wars as they've been recently. The Vietnam war fuckup was largely forgotten or attributed to a different America that had changed. But the recent wars were also pointless and proved otherwise.
Once again, US has the ability to change, but it will take a lot of effort to do so and will have to start leading by example.
> I think its not really a loss of credibility, but the normalization of credibility based on a huge pool of information
That's a great point. It's like the "credibility bubble" burst due to the increased inflow of information, and the public is correcting toward a more realistic valuation - which is to say, recognizing propaganda for what it is, and rightfully being critical of mass media.
I'm also seeing that there are massive investments being made to regain the trust bubble through social media. Historically, the public seems to have short-term memory though..
The newspapers and their online equivalents get their information from the same newswires. You only have to manipulate those few original and allegedly reputable sources and the media echo chamber makes it appear there is a 'free press' with every journalist doing investigative journalism. In reality it is a copy and paste operation, newspapers just take what there is on the newswire and dumb it down a bit for their audience.
There is a lot of rebuilding the US has to do. First fix the politics which is rife with petty interests, lobbying, political imbalance very skewed towards corporations over citizens, extreme polarization, 2 party system, hypocrisy,etc..
But all that, with great effort, can be fixed. A purge is needed, not just try to shove the dirt under a carpet and pretend all is nice and dandy.