Trump's Approach Constitute a Threat to Our Social Fabric.
His internal and external policies – ranging from the challenge to the democratic process previously to recent incursions and threats – undermine not only national and global legal frameworks. However, the issue goes deeper.
They jeopardize the fundamental meaning of civilization itself.
The guiding principle of civilized society is to forestall the more powerful from preying upon and using the vulnerable. Failing that, we could find ourselves permanently immersed in a state of nature where might makes right wins.
This ideal is central of the nation's founding texts. This is also the foundation of the modern framework of international relations advocated by the United States, built on international cooperation, popular sovereignty, individual liberties, and the legal authority.
However, it is a delicate ideal, easily violated by those who choose to misuse their authority. Preserving it necessitates that the powerful have enough integrity to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that society demand responsibility when they fail.
Unfettered might is not right. It results in uncertainty, chaos, and war.
Whenever entities that are richer and more powerful target and use those that are weaker, the framework of civilization frays. If these actions are left unchecked, the fabric unravels. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge into chaos and war. History provides ample precedent.
We now inhabit a global community with deepening divides. Authority and resources are more concentrated than in modern history. This creates conditions for the powerful to leverage their position against the less fortunate because they perceive themselves as untouchable.
The fortunes of certain ultra-wealthy individuals is staggering. The reach of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace extends over numerous countries. AI is poised to further concentrate economic and political clout to a greater degree. The military might of the major powers is unprecedented in the annals of time.
Enabled by a compliant faction and a pliant judicial body, the highest office has been turned into the most powerful and unaccountable entity of government in the modern era.
Combine these factors and you perceive the danger.
A clear connection links earlier transgressions to ongoing threats. Both were based on the hubris of absolute power.
You see a similar pattern in international affairs: in wars of aggression, in strategic threats, and in the worldwide exploitation by massive conglomerates.
But, raw power does not make right. It produces uncertainty, upended order, and war.
The lessons of the past reveal that laws and norms to limit the influential also protect them. Without such constraints, their insatiable demands for greater influence and riches eventually bring them down – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for international catastrophe.
Such contempt for legal order will haunt the nation and the world – and indeed a rules-based order – for years to come.