Donald Trump's Actions Pose a Risk to Our Social Fabric.
His domestic and foreign policies – including the attempted coup in the past to latest actions and threats – weaken not only national and global legal frameworks. The implications are broader.
These actions endanger the very concept of what we mean by.
A moral purpose of any advanced culture is to prevent the more powerful from attacking and exploiting the less powerful. Otherwise, we risk being permanently immersed in a conflict of all against all where might makes right prevails.
This ideal is embedded of the Declaration and Constitution. It’s also the core of the global system established after WWII championed by the America, emphasizing collective action, popular sovereignty, individual liberties, and the legal authority.
However, it is a vulnerable construct, frequently ignored by those who choose to misuse their influence. Upholding it necessitates that the influential have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that the public ensure they answer for their actions if they don't.
Absolute power does not make right. It leads to instability, disruption, and conflict.
Each instance entities that are advantaged prey upon those that are weaker, the structure of civilization frays. If such aggression are allowed to continue, the system fails. Allowing it to persist, the world can descend into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.
Today, we live in a society and world grown vastly more unequal. Authority and resources are more concentrated than ever before. This encourages the elite to take advantage of the less fortunate because they perceive themselves as above the law.
The resources of a handful of billionaires is difficult to fathom. The reach of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace covers much of the globe. Artificial intelligence is likely to consolidate resources and influence to a greater degree. The offensive capability of the leading countries is unprecedented in the annals of time.
Empowered by political allies and a pliant judicial body, the executive office has been turned into the supreme and answerable-to-none instrument of government in history.
Combine these factors and you see the looming crisis.
A clear connection ties past breaches of norms to present-day threats. Each were premised on the overconfidence of invincibility.
There is parallel dynamics in the actions of other powers: in territorial invasions, in strategic threats, and in the worldwide exploitation by industrial titans.
However, strength without restraint does not establish right. It produces instability, revolution, and armed conflict.
Historical evidence demonstrates that frameworks designed to check the influential also shield them. If these guardrails are removed, their insatiable demands for more power and wealth eventually bring them down – taking down their enterprises, countries, or domains. And pave the way for global conflict.
Such lawlessness will cast a long shadow over international stability – and indeed civilized conduct – for years to come.