Trump's Policies Present a Risk to Our Social Fabric.
His internal and external initiatives – ranging from the effort to overturn the election previously to recent actions and warnings – erode both national and global jurisprudence. The implications are broader.
These actions endanger the very concept of civilization itself.
A moral purpose of a functioning society is to stop the more powerful from attacking and exploiting the vulnerable. Without this, we could find ourselves permanently immersed in a state of nature where might makes right wins.
This concept is central of America’s founding documents. It is equally the heart of the postwar international order championed by the United States, built on collective action, democratic governance, individual liberties, and the rule of law.
However, it is a fragile construct, often broken by those who seek to abuse their influence. Upholding it requires that the powerful have enough integrity to refrain from seeking temporary advantages, and that the public demand responsibility if they don't.
Unchecked strength does not equal right. It makes for instability, disruption, and conflict.
Each instance individuals, companies, or nations that are advantaged prey upon those that are not, the structure of our shared norms unravels. If these actions are left unchecked, the structure collapses. Without intervention, the world can descend into chaos and war. It has happened before.
Our current reality is a global community marked by extreme inequality. Political and economic power are increasingly centralized than in recent memory. This creates conditions for the elite to exploit the weaker because they act with a sense of untouchable.
The resources of a handful of billionaires is staggering. The reach of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace spans numerous countries. Advanced technology is could further concentrate wealth and power further. The military might of the world's largest nations is without parallel in human history.
Supported by political allies and a sympathetic judicial body, the presidency has been turned into the supreme and answerable-to-none agent of the state in recent memory.
Consider this confluence and you perceive the looming crisis.
An unbroken thread connects earlier transgressions to ongoing menaces. Each were founded upon the hubris of absolute power.
There is parallel dynamics in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in coercive diplomacy, and in the rampant monopolization by massive conglomerates.
Yet, strength without restraint does not establish right. It fosters fragility, upended order, and war.
The lessons of the past reveal that frameworks designed to check the influential also shield them. If these guardrails are removed, their endless appetite for more power and wealth ultimately bring them down – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for international catastrophe.
This blatant lawlessness will haunt America and the global community – and indeed civilization – for years to come.
