The Former President's Policies Present a Danger to Civilization.
His national and international strategies – ranging from the attempted coup in the past to current moves and threats – weaken both national and global legal frameworks. However, the issue goes deeper.
They jeopardize the very concept of a civilized world.
A guiding principle of a functioning society is to prevent the more powerful from harming and taking advantage of the vulnerable. Without this, we would be locked in a state of nature where might makes right wins.
This principle is embedded of the nation's founding texts. It’s also the heart of the global system established after WWII championed by the US, emphasizing collective action, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
But, it is a vulnerable principle, easily violated by those who would exploit their influence. Maintaining it necessitates that the influential have enough integrity to avoid seeking immediate gains, and that the public demand responsibility if they don't.
Absolute power does not equal right. It leads to uncertainty, upheaval, and conflict.
Every time people or corporations or countries that are wealthier and stronger attack and exploit those that are weaker, the structure of society weakens. If such aggression are allowed to continue, the system fails. If not stopped, the world can descend into disorder and conflict. We have seen this pattern previously.
We now inhabit a global community grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are more concentrated than in recent memory. This encourages the powerful to exploit the weaker because they act with a sense of omnipotent.
The fortunes of certain ultra-wealthy individuals is difficult to fathom. The power of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors spans much of the globe. AI is could centralize resources and influence further. The destructive power of the world's largest nations is without parallel in human history.
Supported by complicit legislators and an accommodating high court, the executive office has been made into the supreme and answerable-to-none instrument of the state in history.
Combine these factors and you see the looming crisis.
A direct line connects previous transgressions to ongoing threats. Both were premised on the overconfidence of invincibility.
You see parallel dynamics in international affairs: in territorial invasions, in strategic threats, and in the rampant monopolization by industrial titans.
However, unfettered might does not create right. It fosters uncertainty, revolution, and bloodshed.
Historical evidence demonstrates that laws and norms to limit the powerful also safeguard them. Absent these limits, their insatiable demands for greater influence and riches in time cause their collapse – taking down their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for global conflict.
This kind of disregard for rules will haunt the nation and the world – and indeed civilized conduct – for a long time.
