The Former President's Actions Constitute a Danger to Civilized Society.
The internal and external initiatives – from the effort to overturn the election five years ago to recent moves and threats – undermine both domestic and international law. The implications are broader.
They endanger the fundamental meaning of civilization itself.
A moral purpose of a functioning society is to stop the dominant from attacking and exploiting the vulnerable. Without this, we would be locked in a state of nature where survival of the strongest prevails.
This ideal lies at the center of the nation's founding texts. It’s also the heart of the modern framework of international relations championed by the US, which stresses international cooperation, democratic governance, fundamental freedoms, and the supremacy of law.
Yet, it is a fragile ideal, easily violated by those who would exploit their authority. Maintaining it necessitates that the powerful have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking short-term wins, and that the public ensure they answer for their actions if they don't.
Unfettered might does not equal right. It makes for instability, disruption, and hostilities.
Whenever people or corporations or countries that are advantaged prey upon those that are weaker, the structure of civilization unravels. If these actions are allowed to continue, the fabric unravels. If not stopped, the world can plunge into instability and violence. History provides ample precedent.
Today, we live in a global community with deepening divides. Influence and wealth are held by fewer hands than in modern history. This invites the privileged to exploit the weaker because they feel omnipotent.
The resources of a small group of tycoons is staggering. The power of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace spans much of the globe. AI is likely to consolidate economic and political clout to a greater degree. The destructive power of the leading countries is without parallel in recorded history.
Enabled by a compliant faction and an accommodating judicial body, the highest office has been turned into the most powerful and unaccountable instrument of government in recent memory.
Consider this confluence and you see the threat.
A clear connection links earlier transgressions to ongoing threats. These were based on the hubris of omnipotence.
One observes parallel dynamics in other global contexts: in military conflicts, in expansive ambitions, and in the rampant monopolization by powerful corporate entities.
Yet, raw power does not create right. It makes for fragility, upheaval, and armed conflict.
The lessons of the past reveal that laws and norms to constrain the influential also protect them. Absent these limits, their relentless pursuit for more power and wealth in time bring them down – and with them their corporations, nations, or empires. And threaten international catastrophe.
This kind of disregard for rules will haunt the nation and the world – and indeed civilization – for the foreseeable future.