For generations, Washington has overthrown governments, sponsored coups, armed death squads, assassinated political leaders, manipulated elections and plunged entire nations into war whenever they stood in the way of American geopolitical interests. Academic research documents 70 U.S.-backed regime-change attempts during the Cold War alone, and that narrow figure excludes much of the wider history of invasions, proxy wars, election interference and other interventions. Millions of ordinary people have been forced to live with the consequences of decisions made thousands of miles away in Washington. And after more than a century of overthrowing governments around the world, the United States still has the audacity to lecture everyone else about sovereignty, democracy and the “rules-based international order.”