According to a left-wing polling group, a majority of Americans now believe the US is less respected in the world than we were 13 months ago. That’s not a surprise, but it is a surprise that the left-wing polling group finds it a surprise.

The current president did NOT campaign, and was not elected on, a promise to make the US more respected by other nations. Rather, he promised that we would be more loved by other nations. As he said, and as the people believed, when you do things that earn the respect (and perhaps the fear) of others, they won’t necessarily like you. Among those things are to take a robust view of national security and of defending our national interest. So the current president’s plan was to be loved more by being respected less.

When you set out to make people love you more, and you do it by taking actions that cause them to respect you less, you shouldn’t be surprised by the outcome. You generally end up with neither love nor respect. Machiavelli wrote that 500 years ago. It stuns me that people have to keep relearning it the hard way.