Trump's Approach Constitute a Risk to Civilization.
His internal and external strategies – including the challenge to the democratic process five years ago to recent actions and threats – erode not only national and global law. But that’s not all.
These actions endanger the fundamental meaning of civilization itself.
A moral purpose of any advanced culture is to stop the dominant from preying upon and using the less powerful. Failing that, we would be trapped in a brutish war where only the fittest prevails.
This principle is central of the Declaration and Constitution. This is also the foundation of the postwar international order championed by the America, built on multilateralism, democratic governance, fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.
However, it is a fragile principle, often broken by those who would exploit their power. Maintaining it requires that the influential have the moral fortitude to avoid seeking temporary advantages, and that society hold them accountable when they fail.
Absolute power is not right. It leads to instability, chaos, and conflict.
Whenever entities that are richer and more powerful prey upon those that are weaker, the structure of civilization frays. If these actions are left unchecked, the fabric unravels. If not stopped, the world can plunge into disorder and conflict. It has happened before.
We now inhabit a global community grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are held by fewer hands than in recent memory. This invites the elite to leverage their position against the weaker because they perceive themselves as omnipotent.
The resources of a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals is difficult to fathom. The influence of global industrial giants extends over numerous countries. Artificial intelligence is could centralize wealth and power further. The offensive capability of the world's largest nations is without parallel in human history.
Supported by a compliant faction and a sympathetic judicial body, the highest office has been made into the most powerful and unaccountable entity of the state in the modern era.
Combine these factors and you perceive the looming crisis.
A clear connection connects past lawless actions to present-day menaces. These were based on the overconfidence of omnipotence.
There is parallel dynamics in the actions of other powers: in territorial invasions, in coercive diplomacy, and in the rampant monopolization by powerful corporate entities.
However, raw power does not make right. It makes for uncertainty, upended order, and armed conflict.
History shows that frameworks designed to check the influential also shield them. Absent these limits, their endless appetite for greater influence and riches eventually lead to their downfall – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And threaten world war.
Such contempt for legal order will haunt the nation and the world – and indeed civilized conduct – for years to come.
