Perhaps using "American" (also) for South Americans is popular usage in (certain regions of) South America. You can't just declare that it's wrong just because it's not popular usage in Western culture (which is heavily influenced by the USA).
Indeed, in Latin America we call ourselves "americanos". It's even mentioned in the English language version of Wikipedia for the "American (word)" entry, under "Cultural reception" or something like that. It states "Hispanic Americans" challenge the notion that "American" should be exclusively used for people from the US. It also states the RAE (linguistics body from Spain) also challenges the English language common usage as "abusive" and recommends against adopting this usage in Spanish.
But this is neither here nor there. I didn't intend to lead this in a linguistics direction, but rather towards this notion of Manifest Destiny and exceptionalism, that leads some people (like the ones who replied to me) to believe that rejecting the notion of the US as World Police is somehow the same as being "anti-American".
Since not everyone is from the US, I argue, this idea that we are "all in the same boat" and pushing against US supremacy and above-the-rules'ness is somehow "being anti-American" and "right-wing" is both ridiculous and parochial.
That's fine if Americanos means something different in Spanish. But in the English language it's most typical use is citizens of the USA. That's fine if you want to use the word differently, but don't complain when people don't know what you're talking about.
You are deliberately avoiding the central point, which wasn't about linguistics. In any case English language Wikipedia acknowledges this controversy.
> don't complain when people don't know what you're talking about
I'm not complaining and everyone here does know what I'm talking about.
Actually it was u/ericmay who was complaining about alleged "anti-American" sentiment. Because this is about the world stage and about international rules, the interpretation that America != US is particularly relevant in this case; the interpretation about "common usage" is less relevant since this has major implications for the rest of the world (i.e. that the US is not above the rules and is not the moral light of the free world or whatever).
