The Former President's Policies Constitute a Threat to Civilized Society.
The internal and external initiatives – ranging from the effort to overturn the election five years ago to current moves and statements – erode both domestic and international jurisprudence. However, the issue goes deeper.
They endanger the fundamental meaning of what we mean by.
A moral purpose of a functioning society is to stop the more powerful from harming and taking advantage of the less powerful. Otherwise, we could find ourselves locked in a state of nature where might makes right could survive.
This concept lies at the center of the nation's founding texts. It is equally the core of the postwar international order advocated by the United States, built on international cooperation, popular sovereignty, fundamental freedoms, and the legal authority.
However, it is a delicate construct, often broken by those who choose to misuse their authority. Upholding it necessitates that the those in charge have the moral fortitude to abstain from seeking temporary advantages, and that the rest of us ensure they answer for their actions if they don't.
Unfettered might does not make right. It makes for instability, chaos, and hostilities.
Every time individuals, companies, or nations that are wealthier and stronger prey upon those that are not, the fabric of society frays. If these actions are not contained, the fabric unravels. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge into disorder and conflict. We have seen this pattern previously.
We now inhabit a international landscape grown vastly more unequal. Authority and resources are increasingly centralized than in recent memory. This invites the powerful to take advantage of the less fortunate because they feel untouchable.
The resources of certain billionaires is staggering. The influence of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace spans numerous countries. Artificial intelligence is poised to further concentrate resources and influence further. The military might of the leading countries is unmatched in the annals of time.
Supported by a compliant faction and an accommodating supreme court, the executive office has been transformed into the most dominant and unchecked agent of the state in recent memory.
Put it all together and you perceive the danger.
An unbroken thread links earlier breaches of norms to present-day menaces. Each were founded upon the arrogance of omnipotence.
There is parallel dynamics in other global contexts: in wars of aggression, in expansive ambitions, and in the global depredation by industrial titans.
But, raw power does not create right. It fosters fragility, upheaval, and war.
History shows that rules and conventions to check the powerful also shield them. Absent these limits, their endless appetite for greater influence and riches eventually lead to their downfall – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for international catastrophe.
Such contempt for legal order will plague international stability – and the very idea of civilized conduct – for a long time.
