The Hill Discovers Trump's 'Regime Change Legacy' Existed Long Before Him
The Hill’s opinion piece laudably identifies Trump's turn towards regime change as a 'disruptor' in foreign policy, as if the U.S. haven't been in the regime change business since the overthrow of Queen Lili'uokalani in Hawaii in 1893, or Guatemala in 1954, or Chile in 1973, or Iraq in 2003 – the list is disturbingly long and extremely bipartisan. To declare Trump the singular architect of this
'legacy' requires a peculiar kind of historical amnesia. One might wonder if the esteemed publication’s memory banks simply reset after the Bush Doctrine, or perhaps selective historical recall is a prerequisite for certain op-ed slots. This framing, where Trump's actions are presented in a vacuum, serves to normalize the actual bipartisan consensus on interventionism while simultaneously allowing
critics to pin 'disruption' on a politically convenient figure. It’s not a legacy, it’s a playbook, and every President since at least Eisenhower has thumbed through it. Call it what it is: the continuation of a disastrous policy rooted in imperial ambition, neatly repackaged as a 'Trumpian' disruption to avoid implicating previous, more 'respectable' administrations.