The Former President's Approach Constitute a Danger to Civilized Society.
The domestic and foreign strategies – from the effort to overturn the election five years ago to current moves and threats – weaken both national and global law. The implications are broader.
These actions endanger the very concept of civilization itself.
A guiding principle of civilized society is to forestall the stronger from preying upon and using the less powerful. Without this, we risk being locked in a state of nature where might makes right prevails.
This concept lies at the center of the Declaration and Constitution. It’s also the heart of the modern framework of international relations advocated by the America, built on collective action, popular sovereignty, fundamental freedoms, and the legal authority.
However, it is a delicate ideal, frequently ignored by those who choose to misuse their influence. Upholding it requires that the influential have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us demand responsibility should they falter.
Unchecked strength does not equal right. It results in instability, chaos, and hostilities.
Whenever people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful prey upon those that are less so, the framework of society unravels. If such aggression are not contained, the system fails. Allowing it to persist, the world can descend into chaos and war. It has happened before.
We now inhabit a global community marked by extreme inequality. Influence and wealth are more concentrated than in modern history. This encourages the privileged to exploit the weaker because they act with a sense of omnipotent.
The wealth of certain tycoons is staggering. The reach of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace extends over numerous countries. Artificial intelligence is poised to consolidate economic and political clout to a greater degree. The destructive power of the world's largest nations is unprecedented in the annals of time.
Supported by a compliant faction and a sympathetic supreme court, the highest office has been transformed into the most dominant and unchecked agent of state power in the modern era.
Consider this confluence and you perceive the threat.
An unbroken thread ties earlier breaches of norms to present-day threats. Both were founded upon the arrogance of omnipotence.
One observes much the same in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in expansive ambitions, and in the worldwide exploitation by massive conglomerates.
But, raw power does not establish right. It fosters uncertainty, revolution, and armed conflict.
History shows that laws and norms to check the influential also protect them. If these guardrails are removed, their insatiable demands for more power and wealth ultimately cause their collapse – along with their enterprises, countries, or domains. And threaten international catastrophe.
This kind of contempt for legal order will plague America and the global community – and the very idea of a rules-based order – for a long time.
