European framing of the Ottoman Empire as declining outlived the empire itself

Evidence

The phrase “the sick man” became famous and, despite differences of policy, reflected the common European view of the state of the Ottoman Empire. With the demise of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, the sick man may be said to have died, and been succeeded by his sole legitimate heir, the Turkish Republic. The image, however, remained. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1736

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to how Orientalist frames outlive their referents — a mechanism worth adding to the Said-adjacent representation cluster on the permanence of the ‘declining East’ topos.
• QUESTION: What does it mean that the ‘sick man’ image transferred from the dying Ottoman Empire to the successor Turkish Republic — which frame persisted and how did it land on the successor state?