Trump's Policies Present a Danger to Civilization.
His domestic and foreign strategies – including the challenge to the democratic process five years ago to current actions and warnings – weaken both national and global jurisprudence. But that’s not all.
These actions jeopardize the very concept of a civilized world.
A guiding principle of any advanced culture is to forestall the more powerful from attacking and exploiting the vulnerable. Otherwise, we risk being locked in a brutish war where might makes right wins.
This principle is embedded of the nation's founding texts. It is equally the heart of the global system established after WWII advocated by the America, emphasizing multilateralism, popular sovereignty, human rights, and the legal authority.
Yet, it is a fragile construct, frequently ignored by those who would exploit their influence. Upholding it demands that the influential have enough integrity to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that the public hold them accountable should they falter.
Unchecked strength is not right. It makes for instability, disruption, and hostilities.
Each instance entities that are wealthier and stronger attack and exploit those that are less so, the fabric of civilization unravels. If such aggression are left unchecked, the fabric unravels. Without intervention, the world can fall into disorder and conflict. It has happened before.
We now inhabit a society and world grown vastly more unequal. Authority and resources are more concentrated than in modern history. This encourages the powerful to exploit the weaker because they feel untouchable.
The fortunes of certain tycoons is staggering. The influence of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors covers much of the globe. AI is could further concentrate wealth and power further. The destructive power of the leading countries is without parallel in the annals of time.
Enabled by political allies and a sympathetic judicial body, the highest office has been made into the supreme and answerable-to-none entity of state power in history.
Combine these factors and you grasp the danger.
A clear connection links past transgressions to ongoing provocations. Both were based on the hubris of invincibility.
One observes a similar pattern in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in strategic threats, and in the worldwide exploitation by industrial titans.
Yet, unfettered might does not create right. It produces uncertainty, upended order, and war.
Historical evidence demonstrates that frameworks designed to constrain the influential also shield them. Absent these limits, their insatiable demands for more power and wealth in time lead to their downfall – and with them their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for global conflict.
This kind of contempt for legal order will plague America and the global community – and indeed civilization – for a long time.
