One of the unsung differences between Americans and Europeans (who are similar in so many ways) is that the American experience of the Cold War left Americans far more intuitively aware that 'realism' was the bedrock beneath huge levels of internationalist effort, and realist stewardship of that system was the only thing that keeps it alive... rather than some moral magic of 'progress', 'experience', or the imagined authority of 'international law'.

... because that fight was a daily reality in which Americans were in the cross-hairs for two generations of white knuckled cold war conflict, and to which our whole society was warped to wage on behalf of 'the free world'. 

So, on the American side one of the dispiriting arcs of social media has been the general American public coming to understand of just how naive its allies are and how unappreciated its sacrifices have been both in terms of actual effort, but also forgone opportunities to directly self-deal on it's post-war superpower status....

... only to be accused of 'throwing its weight around and rigging the system' anyway.

Looks like a substantial proportion of the American population is done with it as a partial consequence... and are prepared to educate those 'waking up' to how good we all had it by *actually* throwing its weight around, and *actually* working to rig the system as much in its favor as possible... and rolling the dice in the pre-war great power game.... starting with >checks notes<  er... Greenland.

So, way more dispiriting by far.