The Former President's Policies Pose a Risk to Civilization.
The domestic and foreign initiatives – ranging from the effort to overturn the election previously to recent actions and threats – undermine both national and global law. However, the issue goes deeper.
They endanger the core idea of what we mean by.
The moral purpose of civilized society is to prevent the more powerful from preying upon and using the less powerful. Without this, we could find ourselves permanently immersed in a conflict of all against all where only the fittest could survive.
This concept is central of the nation's founding texts. It is equally the core of the modern framework of international relations advocated by the America, emphasizing collective action, democratic governance, human rights, and the legal authority.
However, it is a vulnerable construct, often broken by those who would exploit their authority. Upholding it demands that the those in charge have the moral fortitude to avoid seeking temporary advantages, and that the rest of us ensure they answer for their actions should they falter.
Absolute power is not right. It makes for instability, chaos, and conflict.
Each instance people or corporations or countries that are wealthier and stronger target and use those that are less so, the fabric of society weakens. If these actions are left unchecked, the structure collapses. Allowing it to persist, the world can fall into disorder and conflict. It has happened before.
Today, we live in a international landscape marked by extreme inequality. Political and economic power are held by fewer hands than in modern history. This encourages the elite to leverage their position against the disadvantaged because they perceive themselves as omnipotent.
The resources of a handful of billionaires is difficult to fathom. The power of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors covers much of the globe. Advanced technology is poised to further concentrate resources and influence even more. The offensive capability of the major powers is without parallel in the annals of time.
Empowered by political allies and an accommodating high court, the executive office has been made into the most dominant and unchecked agent of the state in history.
Put it all together and you grasp the threat.
An unbroken thread ties past breaches of norms to present-day provocations. Each were based on the hubris of absolute power.
You see a similar pattern in international affairs: in territorial invasions, in coercive diplomacy, and in the global depredation by massive conglomerates.
However, unfettered might does not create right. It fosters uncertainty, revolution, and bloodshed.
History shows that rules and conventions to constrain the influential also shield them. Absent these limits, their relentless pursuit for greater influence and riches eventually bring them down – and with them their enterprises, countries, or domains. And risk international catastrophe.
This kind of contempt for legal order will haunt international stability – and the very idea of a rules-based order – for the foreseeable future.
