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Americans will get a rude awakening if they think Europe will just lay down our arms because they say so.
If the orange one wins, that's a wedge into the divide between us.
Well, it's a wedge between them that Putin desperately wants the most. I wonder why Trump is on his side vs the US and allies...
That itself would be a victory. One of Trump's stated reason for wanting out of NATO is Europe wasn't doing their part - the treaty requires specific amounts of military spending and most members were below that. Now that Ukraine happened most of Europe is at least close to the treaty required levels (many are still below, but at least they are close)
Which is to say you can't lay down arms you don't have. If you want to leave America behind (which is both good and bad in different ways) you need to have something in place to handle potential attacks without America.
I think you may be underestimating Europe. National militaries is one thing, and pop culture understanding of the region is another, but you'll find plenty of armaments and munitions in private care all across Europe. Not to mention how some Baltic and Slavic countries are still armed to the teeth, despite having a deficit in military spending.
In any case, the complaint about Europe not spending enough on military is a tired argument, because Europe wasn't neglecting their military - Europe was literally told to remove large swathes of industrial military complexes.
For more info, ask an African, the Chinese, the global south, everyone told Europe to put their guns down - and all across Europe military assets ended up in private hands.
The joke being that in the cities you won't find much guns, but travel out to the country and you'll find large showrooms.
But yeah, if the US betrays Europe, that might be the final nail in the coffin for European and US relations, so much so that I think the CIA would just drop Trump to avoid diplomatic suicide.
Europe has quite a bit in place to defend itself without the US. Something like a million soldiers with some pretty good equipment and training. There are issues, but the EU could defend itself fairly well without the US. It is just that having the most powerfull military behind you makes things a lot easier. The problem is that this makes things easier and the US has a massive intresst in looking strong(Taiwan for example).
If the orange one wins, they deserve any shit that happens to them, it's not like they haven't been warned.
American here. Didn't vote for Trump, didn't want him.
I sincerely hope EU and other nations can and will step in to pick up the slack when US shirks on our responsibility.
Ukraine embodies the American ideal of independence far better than Trump will ever understand.