Americans have always believed that when a president makes mistakes, the next president can fix them.
But what happens when the damage is irreversible?
Sarah Paine, a retired professor at the U.S. Naval War College, termed this a pivotal error. A pivotal error is a decision after which a nation loses the better options it had before and can not get them back. (The Diary of a CEO, transcript)
History has many of them.
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. In December 1941, Japan attacked the U.S. base at Pearl Harbor, which brought the United States into World War II. It was a pivotal error because Japan could never return to the peace or neutrality it had with the U.S. before the attack, and it gave China great-power allies which it did not have before. Japan surrendered four years later. (Dwarkesh Podcast)
Putin invaded Ukraine. In February 2022, Russia invaded all of Ukraine. Russia had held Crimea and part of the Donbas region since 2014. It was a pivotal error because Putin can never return to holding Crimea and the Donbas without a full war, and it pushed Finland and Sweden, which had stayed neutral, to join NATO. (Dwarkesh Podcast; Congressional Research Service) Russia will lose the war and all of Ukraine.
Trump and the Republicans are destroying alliances that took generations to build. They put tariffs on allies, threatened to annex Canada, refused to rule out military force to take Greenland from Denmark, and threatened to abandon NATO. This is a pivotal error because the United States will never regain its allies' trust, and without that trust, it loses the influence it once used to lead the world. (CBC News; Pew Research Center) America will lose its superpower status and become one of many players.
The damage shows in the numbers. In 2022, 83% of Canadians called the U.S. a reliable partner. In 2026, 35% did. Trust in the U.S. fell more than 40 points in Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands over the same period. (Pew Research Center) Once trust is lost, it’s almost impossible to get back, and America’s power was built on trust.
Some damage is reversible. A future president can lift tariffs and rejoin agreements. Starting in January 2027, a Democratic Senate will confirm ambassadors and approve treaties. (Constitution Annotated, Cornell Law School) Some of the damage will be repaired, but trust will take decades to rebuild and will never be as strong.
But here’s what Americans need to understand.
A future president can reverse Trump’s policies but can’t recover what Trump and the Republicans have lost.
It’s like pouring a bottle of wine onto the ground. You can set the bottle upright and save what’s left, but you can never get back the wine soaked into the ground.
On 3 November 2026, American voters took the first step. They gave Democrats control of the House and the Senate. (NBC News; CBS News)
The next step is 7 November 2028, when they can save what America has left by voting the Republicans out of the White House. But no vote or party switch will restore the trust and power America had before the Trump disaster, because once trust is lost, it’s almost impossible to regain.
Every year Trump and the Republicans hold power, America loses more of what it can never get back.
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