> To be clear we operate a representative and stable democracy in the United States.
It's not a representative democracy.
A representative democracy is one where all voters are represented in a branch of government.
The US system is exactly the opposite. It's a winner-takes-all democracy. At all levels. And worse, the executive represents only the half that voted him, the other half don't exist.
There's many other flaws in presidential and semi presidential republics but they are beyond the topic of representative democracies.
And no, the US is clearly not stable on foreign politics.
> You can't throw everything away after decades of helpful, and peaceful cooperation just because of 8 out of 12 years being annoying.
It's a decision that's been made in Washington to revert decades of successful cooperation. We're merely reacting to the new reality.
> That's not true and nobody has ever really treated it as such.
That's a very US-centric way of looking at this. American exceptionalism is cultural, it's not tied to a specific administration.
> I'm not sure the US has really executed 180 degree turns, but even so sometimes it's necessary to make abrupt changes because acting too slowly could be very dangerous.
You don't build international and economic relations with abrupt changes.
Business and diplomatic relations require predictability, stability, trust.
Also, be careful thinking that "acting slowly" is the worst that can happen in a mature democracy.
Giving individuals the capability of acting fast and with little limits might be the most dangerous one. Each presidential republic is merely waiting for the right Erdogan, Trump or Putin to break it.
I'd rather keep our slow and inefficient European democracies where prime ministers have to win the trust of the parliament and their own party every single day with all the bad that comes with it, if the alternatives are what I see around the world.