The Former President's Actions Present a Risk to Civilization.
His national and international strategies – ranging from the effort to overturn the election five years ago to recent moves and warnings – erode both national and global legal frameworks. But that’s not all.
They endanger the very concept of civilization itself.
A ethical foundation of civilized society is to forestall the dominant from attacking and exploiting the less powerful. Without this, we would be trapped in a conflict of all against all where might makes right prevails.
This ideal is embedded of the Declaration and Constitution. It’s also the foundation of the postwar international order advocated by the United States, built on collective action, democratic governance, human rights, and the rule of law.
But, it is a delicate principle, frequently ignored by those who seek to abuse their authority. Upholding it requires that the powerful have enough integrity to abstain from seeking immediate gains, and that the public demand responsibility when they fail.
Unfettered might does not equal right. It makes for instability, chaos, and conflict.
Each instance individuals, companies, or nations that are wealthier and stronger target and use those that are less so, the fabric of our shared norms weakens. If such aggression are allowed to continue, the fabric unravels. Without intervention, the world can plunge into chaos and war. It has happened before.
Today, we live in a society and world grown vastly more unequal. Influence and wealth are held by fewer hands than ever before. This creates conditions for the powerful to exploit the less fortunate because they act with a sense of above the law.
The resources of certain ultra-wealthy individuals is almost beyond comprehension. The power of global industrial giants extends over much of the globe. Artificial intelligence is likely to further concentrate wealth and power further. The destructive power of the major powers is without parallel in the annals of time.
Empowered by a compliant faction and a sympathetic supreme court, the highest office has been made into the most dominant and unchecked agent of state power in the modern era.
Combine these factors and you grasp the looming crisis.
A clear connection links past breaches of norms to present-day threats. These were founded upon the arrogance of omnipotence.
There is parallel dynamics in the actions of other powers: in wars of aggression, in expansive ambitions, and in the global depredation by powerful corporate entities.
But, strength without restraint does not establish right. It produces fragility, upended order, and bloodshed.
Historical evidence demonstrates that laws and norms to check the influential also safeguard them. If these guardrails are removed, their insatiable demands for greater influence and riches in time bring them down – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for global conflict.
Such contempt for legal order will haunt America and the global community – and the very idea of a rules-based order – for a long time.