Who would ever trust America again?

The United States has become thoroughly unreliable on the world stage — and a new president with new promises won't help

The Statue of Liberty.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

Joe Biden may dream of re-embracing the world and returning the United States to a position of global leadership after capturing the White House in November. But fixing America's foreign policy will require much more than simply erasing bad memories of Donald Trump and reverting to the technocratic competence of the Obama administration. In fact, righting our course may demand greater skill and influence than it's reasonable to assume Biden or any other president could possess.

That's because Trump's distinctive ineptitude and incoherence on the world stage is only a symptom of a much bigger and more systemic problem. That problem is American inconstancy.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.