The Former President's Policies Constitute a Threat to Civilization.
The national and international initiatives – ranging from the challenge to the democratic process in the past to recent incursions and warnings – weaken both national and global legal frameworks. But that’s not all.
They threaten the core idea of civilization itself.
The moral purpose of a functioning society is to forestall the more powerful from harming and taking advantage of the weaker. Failing that, we could find ourselves trapped in a state of nature where only the fittest prevails.
This ideal is embedded of the nation's founding texts. This is also the core of the global system established after WWII championed by the US, which stresses international cooperation, popular sovereignty, fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.
But, it is a fragile construct, often broken by those who seek to abuse their authority. Preserving it demands that the powerful have enough integrity to avoid seeking temporary advantages, and that the public hold them accountable if they don't.
Absolute power does not equal right. It leads to turmoil, chaos, and conflict.
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 not contained, the fabric unravels. If not stopped, the world can plunge into disorder and conflict. History provides ample precedent.
Our current reality is a society and world grown vastly more unequal. Authority and resources are held by fewer hands than in modern history. This invites the elite to leverage their position against the disadvantaged because they perceive themselves as above the law.
The fortunes of certain ultra-wealthy individuals is staggering. The power of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors covers much of the globe. AI is likely to further concentrate wealth and power to a greater degree. The military might of the major powers is unprecedented in the annals of time.
Supported by political allies and a pliant high court, the presidency has been made into the most powerful and unaccountable agent of the state in history.
Combine these factors and you perceive the looming crisis.
An unbroken thread ties past breaches of norms to present-day menaces. Each were based on the overconfidence of absolute power.
You see a similar pattern in international affairs: in wars of aggression, in strategic threats, and in the rampant monopolization by industrial titans.
Yet, raw power does not create right. It makes for instability, revolution, and war.
Historical evidence demonstrates that laws and norms to constrain the influential also shield them. Absent these limits, their endless appetite for more power and wealth eventually lead to their downfall – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for world war.
Such contempt for legal order will cast a long shadow over international stability – and the very idea of civilization – for the foreseeable future.