We fully agree that the dictatorships are bad, of course they are. And the US is not that, yet. But it sure appears to be flirting with the idea.

The point I am making is not that the US is bad or good, but that it's are losing soft power, and no, that doesn't just mean "doing something we disagree with".

There is an election in my country right now. Key items that parties now profile themselves on are:

* decoupling from US defence tech

* decoupling the public sector from Microsoft and AWS

* decoupling from Visa and Mastercard

Now, even if all of this happens (and it obviously won't just happen as all of those are hard and expensive), my tiny country won't move the needle in any way. But these talking points were completely unimaginable two years ago.

And I see another trend: my peers in the local startup scene are now reconsidering YC and Delaware encorporation as the default for startup creation. Importantly, this is not because of left wing ideology. Most of them, like myself and I think yourself, are somewhat right-leaning in the traditional sense, not MAGA. We all agree that the EU is over regulated and almost detrimental to entrepreneurship. But at this point, betting on the US looks like a liability.

If these trends are similar elsewhere, and I strongly suspect that they are, the long term loss for the US will be significant. It's the kind of effect that we wont see before years have passed and by then, other things will be on the radar, so I doubt that there will ever be a reckoning of this fact. But I don't doubt that it will happen.