The Former President's Policies Pose a Danger to Civilized Society.
The internal and external strategies – including the challenge to the democratic process in the past to latest moves and threats – weaken not only national and global law. However, the issue goes deeper.
They threaten the core idea of a civilized world.
The moral purpose of any advanced culture is to stop the stronger from attacking and exploiting the vulnerable. Without this, we would be locked in a state of nature where survival of the strongest prevails.
This ideal is embedded of the nation's founding texts. This is also the heart of the modern framework of international relations supported by the United States, which stresses collective action, democratic governance, fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.
Yet, it is a delicate principle, easily violated by those who choose to misuse their authority. Upholding it requires that the those in charge have a sense of duty to avoid seeking temporary advantages, and that the rest of us demand responsibility should they falter.
Absolute power is not right. It leads to turmoil, chaos, and hostilities.
Whenever people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful prey upon those that are not, the structure of society frays. If these actions are not contained, the system fails. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge into chaos and war. It has happened before.
Today, we live in a society and world marked by extreme inequality. Authority and resources are more concentrated than in recent memory. This invites the elite to take advantage of the less fortunate because they feel untouchable.
The resources of a small group of ultra-wealthy individuals is staggering. The power of global industrial giants covers much of the globe. Artificial intelligence is likely to centralize economic and political clout even more. The destructive power of the leading countries is unprecedented in recorded history.
Enabled by political allies and a sympathetic high court, the executive office has been turned into the most powerful and unaccountable instrument of state power in the modern era.
Consider this confluence and you perceive the threat.
A clear connection links previous breaches of norms to ongoing provocations. Both were premised on the hubris of absolute power.
One observes a similar pattern in international affairs: in territorial invasions, in coercive diplomacy, and in the global depredation by powerful corporate entities.
Yet, unfettered might does not make right. It fosters fragility, revolution, and armed conflict.
The lessons of the past reveal that frameworks designed to limit the influential also safeguard them. Absent these limits, their relentless pursuit for more power and wealth eventually bring them down – along with their enterprises, countries, or domains. And threaten international catastrophe.
This kind of lawlessness will cast a long shadow over America and the global community – and the very idea of civilized conduct – for the foreseeable future.
