Even if US democracy can be salvaged from Trump, Europe is moving on | Rafael Behr

Donald Trump’s return to the White House four years after supporters attempted to violently subvert the transfer of power in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack has prompted European allies to begin moving on from reliance on U.S. democracy, Guardian columnist Rafael Behr argues. Behr writes that Trump’s 2020 defeat showed U.S. democracy was “mechanically operational, not culturally robust,” and that voters’ decision to reinstate “the champion of a failed coup” should have been unthinkable. The article says rebuilding trust will take decades in a country that removed a tyrant once and then reinstated him four years later. It matters because European leaders who welcomed Joe Biden’s 2021 declaration that “America is back” now face a second Trump term. What to watch next is how quickly Europe translates that shift into policy.