Donald Trump's Actions Present a Risk to Civilized Society.
The national and international policies – ranging from the challenge to the democratic process in the past to latest incursions and statements – weaken not only domestic and international law. But that’s not all.
These actions endanger the very concept of what we mean by.
The moral purpose of any advanced culture is to stop the stronger from preying upon and using the vulnerable. Without this, we would be permanently immersed in a brutish war where might makes right prevails.
This concept is central of the Declaration and Constitution. This is also the heart of the global system established after WWII supported by the America, built on international cooperation, popular sovereignty, fundamental freedoms, and the legal authority.
But, it is a delicate ideal, often broken by those who choose to misuse their authority. Upholding it demands that the influential have the moral fortitude to refrain from seeking temporary advantages, and that society hold them accountable when they fail.
Unchecked strength is not right. It leads to turmoil, upheaval, and hostilities.
Whenever individuals, companies, or nations that are richer and more powerful prey upon those that are less so, the structure of society frays. Should such behavior are allowed to continue, the system fails. Without intervention, the world can plunge into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.
We now inhabit a international landscape grown vastly more unequal. Authority and resources are held by fewer hands than in modern history. This creates conditions for the elite to take advantage of the disadvantaged because they act with a sense of omnipotent.
The resources of a handful of tycoons is almost beyond comprehension. The power of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors spans a vast portion of the world. AI is could centralize wealth and power even more. The destructive power of the leading countries is unmatched in recorded history.
Empowered by complicit legislators and a pliant supreme court, the highest office has been made into the most powerful and unaccountable entity of government in recent memory.
Consider this confluence and you grasp the danger.
A direct line ties past lawless actions to ongoing threats. These were founded upon the arrogance of invincibility.
There is much the same in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in expansive ambitions, and in the global depredation by massive conglomerates.
Yet, raw power does not create right. It fosters instability, upended order, and war.
History shows that rules and conventions to limit the influential also shield them. Absent these limits, their insatiable demands for increased control and resources in time cause their collapse – and with them their enterprises, countries, or domains. And pave the way for international catastrophe.
This blatant disregard for rules will plague international stability – and indeed a rules-based order – for a long time.
