The Bonfire of US Soft Power
Once Squandered It Will Be Impossible To Get Back--Drawing by Genevieve Shapiro
Some of us may be justified in wondering whether this first month of Trump 2.0 is a nightmare from which we are about to awake or a new reality set to deepen and expand for four more years and possibly beyond. Some of us barely recognize the great democratic experiment we served with pride for decades, twisted as it is into a snarl of chaos and “disruption”. Some of us fear how far we might fall if we fail to stand up and defend what we’re supposed to stand for. Some of us wonder if America can really be great if we’re not also good, or at least give it our best shot. Some of us worry that, if we inflict this level of folly on ourselves with eyes wide open, what follies might we inflict, wittingly or unwittingly, on the wider world?
Is this really what we want? Is this what we voted for? How bad do things need to get before we decide it was not and must stop? A show of hands please.
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Imagine if it was a newly elected Democratic Party president who had promised to ally himself with a rival dictator, cede U.S. leadership and influence overseas, abandon brave democracies fighting for survival against autocrats, insult and bully our closest friends, announce his intent to annex territory from neighbors and allies, and declare that NATO and other such treaty agreements weren’t worth the paper they were written on? Imagine the outrage from Republicans in the Senate, and from Republican pundits, think tankers and media.
Hell, imagine the rage of rational, even-keeled, democracy-minded Democrats!
Which makes the crickets currently emanating from Republicans in the face of President Trump's efforts to do all of the above (and more) all the more painful, outrageous, and ... one strains for the appropriate words to describe it. Cowardly, spineless, cravenly concerned about their political career and indifferent to the national interest, all come to mind. Does anyone believe that Senators Lindsey Graham, Jim Risch, John Cornyn, and even Secretary of State Marco Rubio believe that it makes sense for the United States to ally itself with Putin against Europe, NATO and Ukraine? That our country's core interests and values might have abruptly shifted so decisively and dramatically overnight?
Why don't they say what everyone knows they are thinking? What will replace the rules-based international order? What is more important than the democratic fate of our constitutional republic? What exactly are they afraid of losing, if not that?
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As presidents of both parties have known since World War II and the definitive emergence of the United States as a global superpower, we have exerted at least as much influence through the power of our example as through the example of our power. If you asked eastern Europeans why the Berlin Wall came down, many would smile and say “jazz” and "rock and roll". They were only half joking.
To many, America’s soft power was the real meaning of America, the deeper reservoir of our strength, our resilience, our fundamental attractiveness. Our music, movies, pop culture, clothes, sports, and freewheeling literature, sure. But the perception of transparency, fairness, and judiciousness of our political and economic institutions, too. Our open society, rough and tumble democracy (flaws and all, where people openly criticized and poked fun at the president). A sense of generosity, limitless possibility, the belief that anyone, regardless of background (and with a bit of luck), could become one of us. The American dream writ large. A message of welcome.
Young people in Latin America and Asia don't flock to the Confucius Institute or the Russian Cultural Center; they don't listen to Chinese or Russian music; and they don't brave treacherous waters or trek across continents to the Russian or Chinese border, asking for asylum, or trying to sneak in however they can. Our soft power is our secret sauce and always has been.
So let's take a quick look at how the Trump Administration is husbanding and curating our soft power, making sure we maintain that intangible, indispensable, ultimately fragile source of our global influence and leadership:
Led by the richest man in the world (an immigrant from newly liberated apartheid South Africa), they have shut down USAID, which helps feed, vaccinate and lift up the poorest people in the world.
By threatening, bullying, and telegraphing the intention to renege on formal treaty agreements with Canada, Mexico, Denmark, and Panama, to name only the most conspicuous, they have proven that a close friendship, partnership, and even formal alliance with the United States means not only nothing but potentially worse. With friends like us, our former friends might believe themselves better off seeking the embrace of enemies.
By proposing that Gaza be ethnically cleansed of Gazans to pave the way for a fabulous real estate deal for high net worth individuals, they have shown a stupefying disregard for a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, not to mention a stunningly tone-deaf imperviousness to the strategic realities of the world’s most volatile region.
And then there's Ukraine, which makes one’s head spin so fast and in so many directions it’s hard to know where to begin. Let’s just say the big lie has acquired several new mind-numbing dimensions. Not only has Trump switched sides, backing the autocratic aggressor against the democratic victim, he has reversed the very role of attacker and attacked in an Orwellian contradiction of plainly observed historical fact.
Who are we now? How could it come to this? What do we stand for? For the Thucydidean dictum that the strong will do what they will while the weak suffer what they must? That might makes right? That the United States, with mystifying swiftness, has gone from pillar of rule of law-based democratic system to transactional and amoral bully, making shady deals with tyrants while shaking down those who once were our friends before throwing them casually, without second thought, under the bus?
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The bottom line: Our soft power, which fuels our influence in the world, finds its source at home. It remains anchored in the power of our example. However imperfect, flawed, erring, prone to missteps, our democratic system remained a matter of justified pride, in part because it was open to different points of view and to criticism, and was therefore (to some degree) self-correcting. We never claimed perfection; instead we sought a more perfect union. We made progress in the stubborn challenge of race relations by facing the past squarely and honestly, by acknowledging how far we needed to go—and still do.
Our democratic system was never perfectly efficient either; the framers intended it that way. They feared a monarch, the tyrannical tunnel vision of a single individual who knew too clearly what had to be done and where he wanted to go. For this reason they felt that Congress, the power closest to the people and best able to divine the manifold and contradictory popular will, ought to be first among equals. Which is why the powers of Congress are enshrined in Article 1 of the Constitution. Some of us think it’s about time that congress reasserts its legitimate Article 1 powers before it’s too late, and they become as toothless as, say, the Russian Duma.
Some of us prefer the messiness of democracy, led by the principal representatives of the people. A transactional, personalized, and authoritarian vision leaves us stone cold. And that’s the least of it.
Will the defenders of democracy and American soft power please stand.
 | A guest post by
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The United States just sided with North Korea and Russia in a UN resolution condemning Ukraine—on the third anniversary of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
(Let that sink in.)
Trump has never understood soft power. His approach to diplomacy is the equivalent of a sledgehammer to the marbles—blunt, reckless, and entirely focused on hard power dynamics. So why should anyone be surprised that this is where we’ve landed?
We shouldn’t be.
I realize the author comes from State. As someone who was DoD and worked with State, here’s an unsolicited observation: The Foreign Service has often leaned too heavily on normative aspirations—offering “transparency” and “examples” instead of real leverage, hoping moral authority alone would carry the day. Over time, that muddled our foreign policy.
That’s not necessarily what you meant, Ambassador. But that very approach helped pave the way for the rise of new authoritarians—leaders who see diplomacy not as negotiation but as brute force.
And now, our soft power is evaporating.
Reopening GTMO eliminates any credible stance on human rights. Outsourcing migrant detention to Panama guts our authority on the ICCPR. Slapping tariffs on everyone now ensures we can’t lead future trade agreements.
The legacy of the Trump Administration is simple: nobody will trust the U.S. unless agreements are self-executing or come with built-in mechanisms for self-redress.
That’s the world order after Trump—one defined by chaos, distrust, and stupidity.