Donald Trump's Policies Present a Risk to Civilized Society.
The national and international strategies – ranging from the challenge to the democratic process five years ago to recent moves and warnings – weaken not only national and global jurisprudence. However, the issue goes deeper.
These actions jeopardize the very concept of civilization itself.
A ethical foundation of civilized society is to forestall the dominant from preying upon and using the weaker. Failing that, we could find ourselves permanently immersed in a conflict of all against all where survival of the strongest wins.
This ideal is central of America’s founding documents. It’s also the core of the global system established after WWII championed by the United States, emphasizing multilateralism, democratic governance, fundamental freedoms, and the legal authority.
However, it is a vulnerable principle, often broken by those who would exploit their influence. Upholding it demands that the those in charge have the moral fortitude to refrain from seeking temporary advantages, and that society demand responsibility should they falter.
Unfettered might is not right. It makes for uncertainty, disruption, and war.
Whenever individuals, companies, or nations that are richer and more powerful attack and exploit those that are not, the fabric of civilization weakens. Should such behavior are not contained, the system fails. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge into instability and violence. It has happened before.
Today, we live in a society and world marked by extreme inequality. Authority and resources are increasingly centralized than in recent memory. This creates conditions for the elite to leverage their position against the disadvantaged because they feel omnipotent.
The fortunes of a handful of billionaires is staggering. The power of global industrial giants covers numerous countries. Advanced technology is poised to further concentrate resources and influence even more. The military might of the leading countries is without parallel in the annals of time.
Empowered by complicit legislators and a pliant supreme court, the presidency has been made into the supreme and answerable-to-none instrument of government in history.
Combine these factors and you see the looming crisis.
An unbroken thread connects earlier transgressions to current threats. Both were based on the arrogance of absolute power.
You see much the same in the actions of other powers: in military conflicts, in strategic threats, and in the worldwide exploitation by industrial titans.
However, strength without restraint does not create right. It produces uncertainty, upended order, and bloodshed.
Historical evidence demonstrates that frameworks designed to limit the influential also protect them. If these guardrails are removed, their insatiable demands for more power and wealth in time bring them down – and with them their enterprises, countries, or domains. And risk world war.
This kind of lawlessness will cast a long shadow over the nation and the world – and the very idea of civilization – for a long time.
