The FAA can't wave a magic wand and declare a jet safe, and frankly they never have. Air safety is now and always has been the result of collaboration between the FAA, aircraft manufacturers, and pilots.

The bolts in that door plug weren't installed; it was a one-off due to some maintenance work. Do you propose the FAA systemically review every bolt in an airplane before they declare it airworthy? Every third bolt? Every third bolt of every third plane?

At what point do you just accept that fundamentally, nobody other than Boeing has the resources to check that a plane is safe?

The party to blame here is Boeing. The FAAs job is not to make sure they never step out of line, it's to correct them when they _do_ step out of line.

The FAA is doing their job just fine - I'll remind you, again, that even flying on the 737 MAX is quite safe and you still run a higher risk of death on the drive to the airport than on the plane.