Trump's passing and his admin getting tossed won't erase the memory that a good third of America was always happy with him and wanted what he actually did. America is now branded with MAGA in a way that will take generations to fade.
At this point, I'd say terms rather than generations.
I mean, I'm old enough to remember people saying "Never Forget" about 9/11, but it's barely in any discourse at this point, and that was a single generation ago and had two major wars a bunch of PoW scandals, war crime scandals that led to Manning, and domestic surveillance that led to Snowden. And yet, despite all that, I've only heard 9/11 mentioned exactly once since visiting NYC in 2017, and that was Steve Bannon and Giuliani refusing to believe that Mamdani was legitimate.
So, yeah, if Trump fades away this could be forgotten in 8 years or so; if this escalates to a war (I'm not confident, but if I had to guess I'd say 10% or so?), then I see it rising to the level of generations.
It's different. 9/11 was an outside foe, which was dismantled by US forces, and its leader was executed. America "won" against the perpetrators of 9/11 in the conventional sense.
You cannot defeat MAGA the same way: the "enemies" are among us, and they aren't going anywhere.
From my point of view as a European asking if myself if or when I will be able to trust the USA in the future, the Taliban is to Afghanistan as MAGA is to the USA.
You're the outsider, to me. The pre-9/11 Taliban were seen as "kinda weird but we can do deals, oh dear aren't they awful, never mind", the post-9/11 were not even worthy of talking to. The USA is currently in a similar "pre" state, an invasion would make it a "post" state.
There's how the people in general remember, and then there's how the politicians and the institutions remember. If nothing else, the changes in institutions will have effects reverberating for decades, with the most obvious institution being the military in each country that expected to fight a war under a NATO umbrella with an American general in charge.
If I'm a German or French or Swedish officer, especially if I'm suddenly in Greenland, I'm going to be thinking hard about the changes to come in the next few years so that they're not all dependent upon a friendly America. If nothing else, they're all getting ready now to operate without any Americans in the loop, since it might be Americans they're fighting. That means the entire NATO command structure, which presumes American dominance of it, is now an obstacle to avoid rather than a resource to share. Every PM is asking the head of their air force if they can fly their F-35s without the Americans knowing about it and possibly shutting them down remotely.
There's a story going around today in French newspapers about how French and Ukrainian intelligence fed US intelligence some false strategic info to see if it ended up in Russian hands, which it did within days. Now Ukraine is consciously breaking its relationship with US intelligence because it can't be trusted, while getting closer to French and German intelligence. I suspect that the UK is also carefully looking at what's shared via the Five Eyes and decided what it can/needs to withhold.
I'm saying "never forget" fades. That's a human condition we all share.
I mean, I live in Germany these days, and this country absolutely got the multi-generational thing, and I'm from the UK whose empire ditto, but… the UK doesn't spend much time thinking about the Falklands War and even less about the Cod Wars.
Nobody disagreed with that it eventually fades, they were all saying it is going to take decades. The consequence of 9/11 of was mostly TSAs, following the USA into wars and the erosion of privacy at the mention of terrorism. The first and the last are still ongoing and I think the current US admin is still using the latter as a narrative, the second one may come at an end currently, because the USA is trying to use it against its (former) allies.
What you describe is called "to historicize an event". The WW1 has been historicized by WW2 (some argue it's the same war). But not even WW2 has been historicized yet (at least in Europe) and it already ended 80 years in the past, so I doubt an atlantic conflict is going to be forgotten in the next few decades.
Edit: I originally linked to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicization, but this does not describes what I mean. It is weird, because the supposed German equivalent does. The German article is about a concept from the science of history, while the English article is about a literature concept.
Aye, and thanks for the link, will read the german version as per your edit.
> so I doubt an atlantic conflict is going to be forgotten in the next few decades.
If it gets to one, yes. Was writing late at night, so sloppily, sorry about that.
Right now, I think we're not that far gone yet. Absolutely agree it becomes as you say if it becomes hot war. Not sure about which step between will be the drop that overflows the bucket.
If we don't reduce conflict to mean military conflict, then I think there is definitely some diplomatic issue ongoing.
> Not sure about which step between will be the drop that overflows the bucket.
True, this is kind of the open question, because the EU both needs to be the adult in the room and deescalate, but also can't do compromises with territorial integrity otherwise it has already lost. This will of course have an impact on the "time to forget".
But I don't think if there is a uprising today in the US, Trump and the whole admin is gone next week and they improve their constitution, that the whole issue will just be forgotten. The whole pro-, neutral- or even contra USA debate has been ongoing for decades know. For example the trade deals aren't exactly concordant with EU law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems#Schrems_I) and the USA has been boycotting multilateral institutions, that the EU wants to have authority. I mean it is new that they openly sabotage the ICJ, but that they have the capability to do that is not.
Yeah, one thing the EU could do that wouldn't hurt them/us (much) would be to stop bringing up fake replacements for the data sharing agreements that get shot down.
The damage would mostly hit the top performers of the US stock market (amongst others) while not damaging the EU as much.
It'll probably be tariffs first though, followed by the ACI if things get really bad.
