American here and I think your wording was spot on.
It WAS seen as a “shining beacon” by many around the world.
SEEN as. And as someone who was born here, I can assure you that many in the US absolutely know that is a facade at best.
The shell began cracking in other parts of the world decades ago (longer in places like Africa), but for most Europeans and the mostly un-terrorized-by-US-military countries, I think the turning point was “WMDs” in the early 00s. When every other “Major” country is either silent or outright saying “we have no Intel suggesting this” then you can’t really claim to have moral superiority, and once you see a liar as a liar, it’s all downhill from there.
“seen as” was absolutely the correct phrase, as it was only an illusion.
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
I’d say even Reagan already was a very weird president. Before the Watergate affair with Nixon, trust in American presidents was generally high in non-socialist Europe, though imho they went radically overboard with their anticommunism, conflating anarchism and all liberationist movements with what they saw as red fascism.
After Reagan, the surface may have seemed similar, but beneath in the cogs of the American system, something started breaking the labourers of which we see the effects even now. Reagan instigated a new level of arguments for abolishing the state anywhere, such as COINTELPRO, Operation Cyclone, indebting the American labourer while stagnating wages, and so on, and radicalising the discourse step for step.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Definitely Reagan.