The Former President's Approach Constitute a Risk to Civilization.
The domestic and foreign strategies – including the challenge to the democratic process previously to recent incursions and warnings – undermine both national and global law. The implications are broader.
They threaten the core idea of civilization itself.
A moral purpose of a functioning society is to stop the dominant from attacking and exploiting the weaker. Without this, we risk being trapped in a brutish war where might makes right wins.
This principle lies at the center of the Declaration and Constitution. This is also the heart of the modern framework of international relations championed by the America, built on multilateralism, 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 those in charge have the moral fortitude to avoid seeking short-term wins, and that the public demand responsibility should they falter.
Absolute power does not equal right. It results in instability, disruption, and war.
Each instance people or corporations or countries that are advantaged prey upon those that are not, the fabric of our shared norms weakens. Should such behavior are allowed to continue, the system fails. If not stopped, the world can fall into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.
Our current reality is a international landscape marked by extreme inequality. Political and economic power are increasingly centralized than in recent memory. This invites the privileged to leverage their position against the weaker because they feel untouchable.
The resources of a handful of tycoons is almost beyond comprehension. The influence of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors extends over much of the globe. Advanced technology is likely to consolidate wealth and power further. The military might of the world's largest nations is unprecedented in recorded history.
Empowered by a compliant faction and an accommodating high court, the executive office has been made into the supreme and answerable-to-none agent of the state in history.
Put it all together and you perceive the danger.
An unbroken thread connects previous transgressions to current menaces. Both were founded upon the hubris of invincibility.
You see a similar pattern in other global contexts: in wars of aggression, in coercive diplomacy, and in the worldwide exploitation by industrial titans.
Yet, unfettered might does not make right. It fosters fragility, upended order, and war.
The lessons of the past reveal that frameworks designed to constrain the influential also protect them. If these guardrails are removed, their insatiable demands for greater influence and riches in time bring them down – taking down their enterprises, countries, or domains. And threaten international catastrophe.
This blatant lawlessness will cast a long shadow over America and the global community – and indeed a rules-based order – for the foreseeable future.
