There’s are downsides to being a monster.
China has long struggled to compete with the United States in soft power because the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarianism, human rights abuses, and “wolf warrior” diplomacy limit its appeal. Under Trump, the gap has begun to narrow—not because China has overcome these liabilities, but because of the sharp deterioration of the United States’ image abroad.
“Soft power” is one way of putting it. Another is “not being a shit” or “doing good things instead of bad things.”
It’s infinitely depressing that we’re now a country that does nothing but bad things. It’s not even like the Cold War mix of guns and roses; there are zero roses. “The sharp deterioration of the United States’ image” is a euphemistic way of saying “the violent plunge of the United States into mass deportations, mass impoverishment, and mass murder.”
Trump’s policies have weakened three pillars of American soft power. They have undercut the appeal of the country’s political values, damaged its reputation as a reliable and generous partner, and eroded the long-standing perception that U.S. power by and large operates within rules and restraints, including honoring formal agreements.
All that but it has also just plain done those things. That would be bad even if the “soft power” somehow remained intact. It’s bad in itself as well as bad for self-interested reasons.
At home, Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown, pressure on universities and left-leaning civil society organizations, and attacks on the press have damaged the global standing of the U.S. as a model of political freedom.
Yes and they have also made the US not a model of political freedom. It’s appearance but it’s also reality. All this shit Trump does is bad not just because it makes us look bad, but also because it makes us bad. Trump’s US looks like a horror show, and that’s because it is a horror show. Appearance is not everything.
Trump’s MAGA political culture has also weakened the image of the United States as a multicultural society in which people of different races, religions, and national origins can belong and succeed. Trump’s nativist rhetoric and its effort to draw tighter boundaries around American identity undermines Washington’s credibility when it condemns intolerance and repression abroad.
Again. Instrumentally bad and also bad in itself.
Foreign aid was once another important source of American influence and goodwill. The Trump administration’s abrupt dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development disrupted development and humanitarian programs around the world. In 2025, U.S. aid fell by 57 percent. It now provides less international aid than Germany. The human toll aside, this chaotic withdrawal carries its own political cost: It tells countries that America no longer believes that economic development, public health, education, and poverty reduction around the world ultimately benefit the United States.
See above. The human toll remains, aside or not. Our reputation is in the toilet, and that’s because we’re doing terrible things.