An analysis for The i Paper, a British newspaper, published Saturday and highlighted by Alternet, argues that the United States is squandering a sociocultural "superpower" it has enjoyed for decades, with President Donald Trump's "cruelty and lawlessness" causing that advantage to crumble "before our eyes."

Special correspondent and columnist Patrick Cockburn wrote that the sentiments celebrated in the beloved 1942 film Casablanca — in which would-be refugees desperately seek to reach the United States to escape "fascism, violence and corruption" — are now "grossly out of date." That image of America, he argued, "had at least some substance" at the time, and indeed until very recently.

"This benign perception was the basis of American 'soft power,' the belief that the U.S. was – with many reservations – a force for good in the world, a view which made it a cultural and political superpower," Cockburn explained. "This image was reinforced by the extraordinary cultural dominance achieved by American films (of which Casablanca is a prime example) as well as television and popular music. The U.S. was seen as a country where most people in the world felt they would be happy to live, even if they did not take practical measures to go there." The term "soft power" was coined by Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye in 1990 to describe a country's ability to obtain preferred outcomes through attraction rather than coercion or payment — precisely the asset Cockburn sees slipping away.

"But two years into Donald Trump's second term this once huge American advantage in 'soft power' is swiftly disappearing like an iceberg melting in warm water," he added. "Trump and his lieutenants are furiously attacking all that was best in American government and society, replacing it with a cruelty and lawlessness."

Cockburn pointed to the announcement that the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan would be livestreamed for public viewing as the latest "grotesque" illustration of the decline. Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, was convicted and sentenced to death for the November 2009 attack on the Texas army post that killed 13 people. The revival of public executions, he wrote, "brings the U.S. into line with Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea, and it is only a step behind Islamic State which filmed decapitations and dowsing victims with fuel before setting them ablaze."

Such highly visible, state-backed violence, he argued, has become commonplace during Trump's second term — from the treatment of immigrants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the bombing of boats in the Caribbean Sea.

"U.S. 'soft power' was cumulatively built up over the past century, but is now dissolving by the hour," Cockburn wrote. "Some might argue that America was never as good as it purported to be, but there was much goodness there all the same."

He concluded that American diversity itself may yet prove a counterweight: "In my experience, even those Europeans familiar with the U.S. seldom have an accurate idea of what made it tick. They ignore the impact of its diversity and internal conflicts, which have obvious negative consequences, but they also provide the friction that generates immense political and cultural energy. This creativity and resilience might just be enough to defeat Trumpism, which truly embodies the dark side of America past and present."