The US overthrew the democratic government of Sukarno and killed up to 3 million Indonesians funding the terrorist movements and proxy wars till the US backed military took over as “saviors”. The CIA considered this a successful playbook and named it as the Jakarta Method.

They attack democracies that they don’t like labeling them autocratic and dictatorships. Then install their military juntas. See numerous examples like Chile, Ethiopia, Iran etc.

Stephen Kinzer has written extensively on this in the book Overthrow:

https://www.amazon.com/Overthrow-Americas-Century-Regime-Cha...

On overthrowing the Iranian democracy and installing the Shah:

https://www.amazon.com/All-Shahs-Men-American-Middle/dp/B00S...?

On the Jakarta Method:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jakarta_Method

https://www.amazon.com/Jakarta-Method-Washingtons-Anticommun...?

After reading a bit about the issue, I think it's not accurate to describe Sukarno's government as "democratic", though clearly it was far less oppressive than Suharto's US-backed military dictatorship.

Yes, different variations of that also happened throughout much of South and Central America. They installed capitalist dictatorships to open the countries' markets to US products and establish capitalism, then (in many cases, though obviously not in Iran) pressured those dictatorships to cede power to democracy. I don't think capitalism alone would have destabilized dictatorship as a form of government.

It was a combination of pressure from above and below: US pressure, but also a newly middle-class population starting to raise hell. In most of those countries, protests and civil unrest presaged the transition to democracy--and suppressing it would cost the government their US support, so the easiest thing to do was to just give in.

Sorry, but in Latin America, US pressure was to create the dictatorships, not to remove them. US helped to create them, and supported the torture and chasing of dissidents.

They did, yes, and then (as ertian described) they also exerted pressure to get the dictatorships to hold democratic elections, as long as that wouldn't imperil US access to markets.

Sure, in some countries and time periods. I'm not in any way saying the US has a flawless record. I'm just saying that US pressure was not the only reason why countries transitioned to democracy: it was a combination of popular and international (largely US) pressure. When one or the other was missing, the transition generally never happened.

I'm confused about Indonesia ("reformasi"). You wrote <<US political influence>>. Can you explain how this worked in the context of Indonesia? As I understand, one of the major catalysts of Indonesian democratic reform was the Asian currency crisis.

No, I don't know enough.

Oh, dear... Who tells him...?

That Sukarno ran an autocratic government?

tell him what?