Trump's Approach Present a Threat to Civilization.
His domestic and foreign initiatives – including the attempted coup previously to current actions and threats – undermine not only domestic and international legal frameworks. However, the issue goes deeper.
They threaten the very concept of a civilized world.
A moral purpose of civilized society is to prevent the dominant from preying upon and using the vulnerable. Failing that, we risk being locked in a state of nature where survival of the strongest wins.
This ideal is central of America’s founding documents. It is equally the core of the global system established after WWII advocated by the US, emphasizing international cooperation, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
But, it is a delicate construct, often broken by those who choose to misuse their influence. Maintaining it demands that the those in charge have enough integrity to abstain from seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us ensure they answer for their actions should they falter.
Unchecked strength is not right. It leads to turmoil, upheaval, and conflict.
Each instance entities that are advantaged target and use those that are weaker, the structure of society weakens. Should such behavior are left unchecked, the fabric unravels. Without intervention, the world can descend into disorder and conflict. It has happened before.
Today, we live in a international landscape grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are increasingly centralized than in modern history. This invites the elite to leverage their position against the weaker because they act with a sense of above the law.
The wealth of a handful of billionaires is difficult to fathom. The influence of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors spans much of the globe. Artificial intelligence is could consolidate resources and influence further. The offensive capability of the major powers is unmatched in human history.
Enabled by complicit legislators and a pliant judicial body, the executive office has been made into the most powerful and unaccountable entity of state power in recent memory.
Combine these factors and you perceive the looming crisis.
An unbroken thread links past breaches of norms to current provocations. Both were based on the overconfidence of invincibility.
There is much the same in international affairs: in military conflicts, in coercive diplomacy, and in the rampant monopolization by massive conglomerates.
Yet, strength without restraint does not establish right. It makes for uncertainty, revolution, and bloodshed.
History shows that rules and conventions to constrain the powerful also safeguard them. Without such constraints, their insatiable demands for more power and wealth ultimately bring them down – and with them their corporations, nations, or empires. And risk world war.
This kind of lawlessness will plague international stability – and indeed civilized conduct – for the foreseeable future.
