The Former President's Approach Present a Danger to Civilized Society.
The domestic and foreign strategies – from the effort to overturn the election previously to current actions and statements – weaken not only domestic and international legal frameworks. But that’s not all.
These actions endanger the fundamental meaning of civilization itself.
The ethical foundation of civilized society is to stop the more powerful from preying upon and using the less powerful. Otherwise, we would be locked in a state of nature where might makes right wins.
This ideal lies at the center of the Declaration and Constitution. It’s also the core of the modern framework of international relations advocated by the United States, emphasizing international cooperation, popular sovereignty, human rights, and the rule of law.
However, it is a fragile ideal, often broken by those who seek to abuse their power. Maintaining it necessitates that the influential have the moral fortitude to avoid seeking temporary advantages, and that society demand responsibility if they don't.
Unfettered might does not make right. It makes for uncertainty, disruption, and conflict.
Whenever entities that are advantaged target and use those that are less so, the fabric of society frays. Should such behavior are not contained, the structure collapses. Without intervention, the world can fall into chaos and war. We have seen this pattern previously.
Our current reality is a international landscape marked by extreme inequality. Influence and wealth are increasingly centralized than in modern history. This creates conditions for the powerful to take advantage of the disadvantaged because they perceive themselves as omnipotent.
The fortunes of a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals is almost beyond comprehension. The influence of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace covers a vast portion of the world. Artificial intelligence is likely to further concentrate economic and political clout further. The destructive power of the leading countries is unmatched in the annals of time.
Supported by complicit legislators and a sympathetic supreme court, the highest office has been transformed into the most powerful and unaccountable entity of government in history.
Put it all together and you grasp the looming crisis.
An unbroken thread links earlier breaches of norms to current menaces. Both were premised on the overconfidence of invincibility.
There is much the same in other global contexts: in military conflicts, in strategic threats, and in the global depredation by powerful corporate entities.
However, unfettered might does not establish right. It makes for uncertainty, upheaval, and bloodshed.
History shows that laws and norms to constrain the powerful also safeguard them. Absent these limits, their insatiable demands for increased control and resources in time bring them down – and with them their enterprises, countries, or domains. And pave the way for world war.
Such disregard for rules will haunt the nation and the world – and indeed a rules-based order – for the foreseeable future.
