The Former President's Actions Present a Risk to Our Social Fabric.
His national and international policies – ranging from the effort to overturn the election five years ago to recent actions and warnings – erode both national and global law. However, the issue goes deeper.
These actions threaten the very concept of civilization itself.
The moral purpose of a functioning society is to stop the stronger from attacking and exploiting the less powerful. Failing that, we would be trapped in a conflict of all against all where only the fittest prevails.
This principle lies at the center of the Declaration and Constitution. This is also the heart of the modern framework of international relations advocated by the America, which stresses international cooperation, democratic governance, individual liberties, and the supremacy of law.
But, it is a fragile construct, often broken by those who would exploit their power. Preserving it requires that the those in charge have enough integrity to abstain from seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us demand responsibility if they don't.
Unchecked strength is not right. It results in uncertainty, upheaval, and conflict.
Each instance people or corporations or countries that are advantaged prey upon those that are less so, the framework of society frays. If such aggression are not contained, the fabric unravels. Without intervention, the world can plunge into instability and violence. History provides ample precedent.
Our current reality is a global community marked by extreme inequality. Political and economic power are increasingly centralized than in recent memory. This creates conditions for the privileged to take advantage of the disadvantaged because they act with a sense of omnipotent.
The fortunes of a small group of billionaires is staggering. The influence of global industrial giants covers a vast portion of the world. AI is likely to centralize resources and influence to a greater degree. The offensive capability of the world's largest nations is unprecedented in human history.
Supported by complicit legislators and a pliant supreme court, the highest office has been made into the supreme and answerable-to-none instrument of the state in history.
Put it all together and you see the danger.
A direct line ties past breaches of norms to ongoing provocations. These were founded upon the arrogance of invincibility.
One observes a similar pattern in other global contexts: in military conflicts, in coercive diplomacy, and in the rampant monopolization by industrial titans.
However, unfettered might does not make right. It produces uncertainty, upended order, and war.
The lessons of the past reveal that frameworks designed to check the influential also protect them. Without such constraints, their relentless pursuit for greater influence and riches ultimately bring them down – along with their enterprises, countries, or domains. And threaten international catastrophe.
Such disregard for rules will cast a long shadow over the nation and the world – and indeed civilization – for a long time.
