The Former President's Approach Present a Danger to Our Social Fabric.
The internal and external initiatives – ranging from the challenge to the democratic process five years ago to recent moves and warnings – undermine both national and global legal frameworks. But that’s not all.
These actions threaten the fundamental meaning of civilization itself.
A guiding principle of civilized society is to forestall the dominant from attacking and exploiting the less powerful. Otherwise, we risk being locked in a brutish war where survival of the strongest prevails.
This ideal is embedded of America’s founding documents. This is also the core of the postwar international order supported by the United States, which stresses collective action, democratic governance, fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.
However, it is a delicate principle, often broken by those who choose to misuse their power. Preserving it necessitates that the powerful have the moral fortitude to refrain from seeking temporary advantages, and that the public demand responsibility if they don't.
Unchecked strength does not equal right. It makes for turmoil, chaos, and hostilities.
Every time individuals, companies, or nations that are wealthier and stronger target and use those that are not, the structure of our shared norms weakens. If such aggression are allowed to continue, the system fails. Allowing it to persist, the world can fall into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.
We now inhabit a international landscape grown vastly more unequal. Influence and wealth are held by fewer hands than in recent memory. This creates conditions for the powerful to take advantage of the weaker because they perceive themselves as above the law.
The fortunes of a handful of billionaires is almost beyond comprehension. The reach of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors covers numerous countries. Artificial intelligence is poised to centralize wealth and power to a greater degree. The military might of the major powers is unprecedented in human history.
Enabled by a compliant faction and an accommodating supreme court, the presidency has been made into the most powerful and unaccountable agent of state power in history.
Combine these factors and you see the threat.
A direct line ties previous transgressions to current threats. Each were based on the arrogance of invincibility.
One observes much the same in other global contexts: in wars of aggression, in strategic threats, and in the global depredation by massive conglomerates.
Yet, strength without restraint does not create right. It produces instability, upheaval, and war.
Historical evidence demonstrates that rules and conventions to limit the influential also protect them. If these guardrails are removed, their insatiable demands for increased control and resources in time bring them down – taking down their corporations, nations, or empires. And risk world war.
Such lawlessness will plague international stability – and indeed civilized conduct – for years to come.
