The Former President's Policies Constitute a Danger to Civilization.
The domestic and foreign strategies – including the attempted coup previously to recent actions and warnings – weaken not only national and global jurisprudence. But that’s not all.
They jeopardize the very concept of a civilized world.
The moral purpose of a functioning society is to prevent the stronger from attacking and exploiting the weaker. Failing that, we could find ourselves permanently immersed in a state of nature where might makes right prevails.
This ideal is central of the nation's founding texts. It is equally the core of the postwar international order supported by the United States, which stresses multilateralism, popular sovereignty, fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.
However, it is a delicate principle, often broken by those who seek to abuse their power. Upholding it requires that the those in charge have enough integrity to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that the rest of us demand responsibility when they fail.
Absolute power does not make right. It results in instability, disruption, and war.
Whenever people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful attack and exploit those that are less so, the structure of civilization weakens. Should such behavior are not contained, the structure collapses. Without intervention, the world can descend into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.
Our current reality is a society and world marked by extreme inequality. Political and economic power are more concentrated than in modern history. This invites the elite to leverage their position against the less fortunate because they perceive themselves as untouchable.
The fortunes of a handful of billionaires is almost beyond comprehension. The power of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors extends over a vast portion of the world. Artificial intelligence is likely to consolidate wealth and power further. The military might of the leading countries is unprecedented in human history.
Supported by a compliant faction and a sympathetic judicial body, the executive office has been made into the supreme and answerable-to-none instrument of the state in history.
Combine these factors and you grasp the danger.
A direct line connects previous lawless actions to ongoing provocations. These were based on the arrogance of omnipotence.
There is a similar pattern in other global contexts: in wars of aggression, in strategic threats, and in the rampant monopolization by powerful corporate entities.
But, raw power does not make right. It produces instability, upheaval, and armed conflict.
The lessons of the past reveal that laws and norms to constrain the powerful also protect them. Absent these limits, their relentless pursuit for increased control and resources ultimately bring them down – along with their enterprises, countries, or domains. And risk global conflict.
Such lawlessness will plague the nation and the world – and the very idea of civilization – for the foreseeable future.