The Former President's Policies Constitute a Threat to Civilized Society.
The national and international strategies – from the effort to overturn the election previously to current actions and statements – weaken both national and global law. However, the issue goes deeper.
They jeopardize the very concept of what we mean by.
A moral purpose of civilized society is to prevent the dominant from preying upon and using the vulnerable. Otherwise, we would be permanently immersed in a brutish war where only the fittest could survive.
This concept is central of America’s founding documents. This is also the foundation of the global system established after WWII advocated by the US, built on collective action, democratic governance, fundamental freedoms, and the legal authority.
However, it is a vulnerable ideal, easily violated by those who choose to misuse their authority. Preserving it requires that the powerful have the moral fortitude to abstain from seeking short-term wins, and that society hold them accountable should they falter.
Unfettered might does not equal right. It results in uncertainty, chaos, and hostilities.
Each instance people or corporations or countries that are wealthier and stronger target and use those that are not, the framework of our shared norms unravels. Should such behavior are allowed to continue, the fabric unravels. If not stopped, the world can plunge into chaos and war. History provides ample precedent.
Our current reality is a global community grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are increasingly centralized than in modern history. This encourages the powerful to exploit the less fortunate because they perceive themselves as untouchable.
The fortunes of a small group of ultra-wealthy individuals is difficult to fathom. The power of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors spans numerous countries. Artificial intelligence is could centralize economic and political clout even more. The offensive capability of the world's largest nations is without parallel in human history.
Enabled by complicit legislators and a pliant supreme court, the highest office has been made into the most powerful and unaccountable instrument of state power in recent memory.
Put it all together and you see the danger.
A clear connection links previous lawless actions to ongoing threats. Each were premised on the arrogance of omnipotence.
You see parallel dynamics in the actions of other powers: in military conflicts, in expansive ambitions, and in the worldwide exploitation by powerful corporate entities.
But, raw power does not make right. It fosters fragility, upended order, and armed conflict.
Historical evidence demonstrates that rules and conventions to constrain the influential also safeguard them. Absent these limits, their insatiable demands for greater influence and riches eventually bring them down – taking down their enterprises, countries, or domains. And risk global conflict.
Such disregard for rules will haunt international stability – and indeed civilization – for the foreseeable future.
