The Former President's Policies Pose a Threat to Civilized Society.
The national and international initiatives – from the effort to overturn the election five years ago to recent moves and statements – weaken not only national and global legal frameworks. However, the issue goes deeper.
These actions jeopardize the core idea of a civilized world.
A moral purpose of any advanced culture is to prevent the stronger from preying upon and using the less powerful. Failing that, we would be permanently immersed in a conflict of all against all where only the fittest prevails.
This ideal lies at the center of the nation's founding texts. It’s also the heart of the postwar international order championed by the United States, emphasizing multilateralism, popular sovereignty, human rights, and the legal authority.
But, it is a delicate ideal, frequently ignored by those who would exploit their influence. Maintaining it requires that the those in charge have enough integrity to abstain from seeking immediate gains, and that society hold them accountable when they fail.
Absolute power does not make right. It results in uncertainty, upheaval, and war.
Every time people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful prey upon those that are less so, the fabric of society weakens. If such aggression are left unchecked, the structure collapses. Without intervention, the world can descend into chaos and war. History provides ample precedent.
We now inhabit a international landscape grown vastly more unequal. Authority and resources are more concentrated than in modern history. This creates conditions for the powerful to exploit the disadvantaged because they act with a sense of untouchable.
The fortunes of certain tycoons is staggering. The reach of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace spans numerous countries. Advanced technology is poised to further concentrate economic and political clout to a greater degree. The destructive power of the world's largest nations is unprecedented in recorded history.
Enabled by political allies and an accommodating high court, the highest office has been turned into the most dominant and unchecked agent of state power in history.
Put it all together and you see the danger.
An unbroken thread connects past lawless actions to current provocations. These were founded upon the hubris of absolute power.
You see much the same in other global contexts: in wars of aggression, in expansive ambitions, and in the rampant monopolization by industrial titans.
Yet, unfettered might does not make right. It produces instability, revolution, and bloodshed.
The lessons of the past reveal that laws and norms to check the influential also protect them. If these guardrails are removed, their relentless pursuit for greater influence and riches ultimately bring them down – and with them their enterprises, countries, or domains. And pave the way for international catastrophe.
This kind of contempt for legal order will cast a long shadow over international stability – and indeed civilized conduct – for a long time.
