Americans may be surprised to find that foreigners actually don't pay as much attention to US elections as they think. Even many people in the US don't care, they're just inundated with media coverage of it. At most about 66% of eligible voters even vote and the people that do vote aren't necessarily informed. You may have seen interviews with undecided voters. They turn up to vote but haven't necessarily put much thought into it.

As an aside, I find it funny when Americans scream about other countries empire building and carrying out provocative military exercises when the US has so many military bases everywhere. You don't need to officially annex land to control it, that's old style thinking.