US has long history of hegemony and imperialism
In order for Elizabeth Shackelton to showcase Trump’ playing warlord in Venezuela as a singular example of American global bullying, we would would have to erase from the historical record so many bipartisan examples of lawless and brutal interventions from Vietnam and Chile to Iraq and Libya that I am almost embarrassed to make this elementary point.
More topically, we would also have to grant ourselves a blanket pardon for bipartisan collaboration in the Gaza Genocide and recklessly fomenting the NATO edventure in Ukraine which left the last administration closing out its unlamented tenure by firing missiles onto the territory of a nuclear rival.
The unnostalgic truth is that this long bloody history has landed the world in a twilight realm where we are likely to find out the hard way what can happen when heavily militarized superpowers decide that the speculative spread of global anarchy can best work to their predatory advantage. If I was a betting man, I would put my money not on bombastic neanderthals who squander billions of dollars to assert their regional predominance by kidnapping a head of state but rather on those unobtrusive Chinese go-getters who look to gain a vital local foothold by selling superior clean technology or by building a cutting-edge rail network in Chile and an advanced port system in Peru.