A better angle might be that currently in the US capitalism is rarely actually scrutinized for the disadvantages it does have. Capitalism is almost synonymous with America and people often see critiques of capitalism as an attack on the nation itself, even though most of them don't actually know the principles or characteristics of capitalism.
It goes the other way too where people automatically think that characteristics of America are capitalist
As an example a majority of Americans probably think that American politics and democracy is part of capitalism, or that the economy is pure capitalism.
If people were more willing to critically evaluate capitalism without feeling attacked it could increase support for more worker friendly policies that are generally socialist in nature while still having a capitalistic foundation.
Similar thought to your first paragraph, now that the dust is settling. My best guess is the current US playbook is to risk most of the US soft power and take advantage of its current economic position to really bolster its hard power so the US is in a position to exert more direct force/coerce the rest of the world for what it wants and have more control over policy in other countries. If that's really the case then china is probably the biggest threat to that gamble as it's been catching up to or surpassing the US in a few industries recently. And if the gamble fails the economy sinks for a while and Europe or china passes the us as the global powerhouse.