The Former President's Approach Present a Risk to Our Social Fabric.
The domestic and foreign policies – including the challenge to the democratic process previously to latest actions and warnings – undermine both domestic and international law. But that’s not all.
These actions threaten the very concept of a civilized world.
The ethical foundation of a functioning society is to stop the dominant from attacking and exploiting the less powerful. Without this, we could find ourselves trapped in a conflict of all against all where survival of the strongest prevails.
This concept is central of the nation's founding texts. It’s also the heart of the postwar international order championed by the US, which stresses multilateralism, democratic governance, fundamental freedoms, and the supremacy of law.
However, it is a fragile construct, often broken by those who would exploit their influence. Upholding it demands that the those in charge have a sense of duty to abstain from seeking short-term wins, and that the public ensure they answer for their actions if they don't.
Unfettered might does not make right. It makes for uncertainty, upheaval, and war.
Every time entities that are wealthier and stronger prey upon those that are weaker, the fabric of our shared norms weakens. If such aggression are allowed to continue, the structure collapses. Allowing it to persist, the world can descend into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.
Our current reality is a international landscape grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are increasingly centralized than in recent memory. This creates conditions for the privileged to take advantage of the disadvantaged because they perceive themselves as above the law.
The fortunes of a handful of tycoons is difficult to fathom. The power of global industrial giants extends over numerous countries. Advanced technology is could further concentrate resources and influence even more. The military might of the leading countries is unprecedented in the annals of time.
Empowered by a compliant faction and a sympathetic high court, the presidency has been transformed into the supreme and answerable-to-none agent of state power in history.
Combine these factors and you perceive the looming crisis.
A direct line links past lawless actions to current menaces. These were based on the hubris of omnipotence.
One observes parallel dynamics in the actions of other powers: in military conflicts, in coercive diplomacy, and in the global depredation by industrial titans.
However, raw power does not make right. It produces fragility, revolution, and armed conflict.
History shows that laws and norms to check the influential also safeguard them. Without such constraints, their insatiable demands for greater influence and riches ultimately lead to their downfall – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And threaten world war.
Such lawlessness will plague international stability – and indeed civilization – for the foreseeable future.
