In 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) went to Portland, Oregon to round up what officials described as “criminal immigrants.” But according to witnesses and videos shared online, it went far beyond that. People were pulled from their homes, immigration hearings, and even Home Depot parking lots — all on camera, for the world to see.

“Cruelty was the point” quickly became a phrase repeated across social media and protest circles.

Eventually, people in Portland began fighting back in creative ways, showing up at ICE facilities dressed as inflatable frogs, dinosaurs, unicorns, and bananas. While reading about the protests, I noticed plenty of conversations about outrage and resistance, but far less discussion about the many forms peaceful protest can take. So, naturally, I went down a research rabbit hole.

Two ideas kept resurfacing: joy as resistance and jazz.

Of course, jazz can bring joy, but I’m talking about something larger — soft power.

Soft power is the ability to influence people through attraction, culture, and persuasion rather than force. Unlike “hard power,” which relies on military strength, economic pressure, or coercion, soft power works through magnetic appeal. It shapes how a country is perceived rather than forcing compliance.

During the Cold War, the U.S. State Department quietly launched the Jazz Ambassadors program in 1956 — the same year President Eisenhower was wrestling with the contradiction of promoting freedom abroad while Black Americans were still being denied basic civil rights at home.

What emerged became one of the most fascinating cultural diplomacy campaigns in American history.

And the reason it worked was because it wasn’t entirely propaganda.

There is a photograph from 1956 that should probably hang in every State Department hallway: Louis Armstrong standing with trumpet in hand, surrounded by a crowd of ecstatic Ghanaians who had never heard anything like him before. No interpreter needed. No policy briefing. Just music doing what diplomats in suits often could not.

America sent Black jazz artists — Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, and Thelonious Monk — into regions the Soviet Union was actively trying to influence: Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

The message was subtle but powerful.

Not America is perfect.But rather: even in an imperfect country, this kind of artistic freedom is still possible.

That distinction mattered.

Dizzy Gillespie openly criticized racism in the United States while touring overseas. He spoke candidly in interviews and before foreign audiences. And remarkably, the State Department allowed it. Silencing him would have confirmed Soviet accusations about American hypocrisy. Letting him speak honestly — while still representing America — projected something far more persuasive about democratic societies: contradiction could exist without complete suppression.

The brilliance of jazz itself also mattered.

Jazz was born from Black American struggle, creativity, and reinvention. It was rebellious music. Improvised music. Democratic music. Every musician had a voice, but no one could dominate the entire ensemble for long. That symbolism traveled.

When international audiences watched integrated bands perform together on stage, America appeared less like a rigid superpower and more like possibility itself.

Even if the reality back home was far messier.

Jazz carried something policy alone could not. It was collaborative, improvisational, and dependent on listening — musicians responding to each other in real time. Decades later, political scientist Joseph Nye would formally coin the term “soft power,” but the jazz musicians were already practicing it instinctively.

They were not projecting dominance. They were projecting possibility.

Soft Power in 2026

Learning about soft power fascinated me because, honestly, I had never really thought about culture this way before.

But the deeper I researched, the more obvious something became: soft power cannot survive without cultural confidence.

During the Jazz Ambassador era, American culture felt expansive. Hollywood dominated movie screens worldwide. Motown crossed borders effortlessly. American writers, musicians, and artists helped shape the global imagination. Even people who strongly criticized American foreign policy often still admired American creativity.

That atmosphere feels thinner now.

I cannot tell whether it has disappeared entirely or simply fractured into a thousand competing versions of itself.

The United States still exports entertainment on a massive scale, but much of it now arrives filtered through algorithms, outrage cycles, and corporate sameness. Social media increased visibility while simultaneously flattening mystique. A jazz concert in Belgrade once felt rare and electric — a glimpse into another world. Today, every culture streams every other culture instantly.

Influence is no longer uniquely American territory.

South Korea exports K-pop and television dramas with astonishing precision. African music shapes global charts. Latin artists dominate streaming platforms. Cultural gravity has become multipolar.

And America increasingly feels exhausted with itself.

Soft power depends on credibility. A country cannot convincingly market freedom while appearing fearful of books, journalists, universities, artists, or uncomfortable history. The old jazz tours resonated because the musicians carried authentic artistic authority. They were not influencers repeating approved talking points.

People trusted the music.

That kind of trust feels harder to manufacture now. Institutions have weakened. Public faith has eroded. Even patriotism sometimes feels louder and more defensive than confident, as though volume itself could substitute for certainty.

Still, jazz leaves behind one lesson worth holding onto.

America’s greatest soft power was never military strength or political messaging. It was the ability to convince the world that freedom could sound beautiful. 🍁

Recently, several LEGO-style AI-generated videos linked to Iranian state-affiliated media networks began circulating online. Security analysts and media researchers have described them as a modern form of soft power — part propaganda, part meme warfare, and part digital influence campaign.

Which raises an uncomfortable question:

Is this administration capable of rebuilding American soft power?

Or will that responsibility increasingly belong to ordinary people — artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, and citizens themselves?