There was no single message to be culled from the election results throughout Latin America last year. Elections held in five countries did, however, suggest the shapes of some alternative American futures. The voters have spoken. What now?

Three simmering scandals in Mexico, involving U.S. arms shipments to drug cartels, the presence of Guatemalan paramilitaries who had been trained under U.S. auspices, and money laundering by a prominent U.S. bank, have led many Mexicans to believe that that the guns, the assassins, and the laundered money that are at the heart of the drug violence, that has taken almost 35,000 lives since 2007, all carry U.S. fingerprints.