Trump's Approach Pose a Risk to Civilized Society.
The internal and external policies – from the challenge to the democratic process previously to current moves and statements – weaken not only domestic and international jurisprudence. The implications are broader.
These actions endanger the core idea of a civilized world.
A ethical foundation of any advanced culture is to forestall the dominant from harming and taking advantage of the vulnerable. Otherwise, we would be permanently immersed in a conflict of all against all where only the fittest wins.
This concept is central of America’s founding documents. It’s also the core of the modern framework of international relations advocated by the United States, emphasizing collective action, popular sovereignty, human rights, and the rule of law.
However, it is a delicate ideal, easily violated by those who seek to abuse their authority. Preserving it demands that the powerful have enough integrity to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that society hold them accountable should they falter.
Unfettered might is not right. It leads to instability, upheaval, and conflict.
Every time individuals, companies, or nations that are advantaged target and use those that are less so, the framework of society unravels. Should such behavior are allowed to continue, the system fails. Allowing it to persist, the world can descend into disorder and conflict. It has happened before.
Today, we live in a international landscape grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are held by fewer hands than in modern history. This invites the powerful to take advantage of the weaker because they feel untouchable.
The wealth of a small group of billionaires is staggering. The influence of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors covers much of the globe. AI is could further concentrate resources and influence to a greater degree. The destructive power of the major powers is unmatched in the annals of time.
Supported by a compliant faction and a pliant high court, the highest office has been turned into the supreme and answerable-to-none entity of government in history.
Consider this confluence and you perceive the threat.
An unbroken thread links previous lawless actions to current threats. These were based on the arrogance of invincibility.
There is much the same in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in expansive ambitions, and in the rampant monopolization by powerful corporate entities.
Yet, unfettered might does not make right. It makes for fragility, revolution, and bloodshed.
History shows that frameworks designed to check the influential also safeguard them. If these guardrails are removed, their insatiable demands for more power and wealth eventually lead to their downfall – and with them their corporations, nations, or empires. And risk world war.
This blatant lawlessness will plague the nation and the world – and indeed civilization – for the foreseeable future.
