Donald Trump's Policies Present a Risk to Civilization.
His domestic and foreign policies – from the challenge to the democratic process in the past to current actions and threats – weaken both domestic and international law. However, the issue goes deeper.
They jeopardize the fundamental meaning of civilization itself.
The guiding principle of civilized society is to forestall the more powerful from harming and taking advantage of the vulnerable. Without this, we risk being locked in a state of nature where might makes right could survive.
This principle is embedded of the nation's founding texts. It is equally the core of the modern framework of international relations supported by the US, built on international cooperation, popular sovereignty, individual liberties, and the supremacy of law.
However, it is a fragile construct, often broken by those who would exploit their authority. Upholding it demands that the influential have a sense of duty to avoid seeking immediate gains, and that society hold them accountable if they don't.
Absolute power does not make right. It leads to instability, upheaval, and conflict.
Each instance people or corporations or countries that are wealthier and stronger attack and exploit those that are weaker, the structure of our shared norms weakens. Should such behavior are left unchecked, the system fails. Allowing it to persist, the world can descend into chaos and war. History provides ample precedent.
Our current reality is a society and world marked by extreme inequality. Authority and resources are held by fewer hands than in recent memory. This encourages the powerful to exploit the less fortunate because they feel omnipotent.
The fortunes of a handful of billionaires is staggering. The power of global industrial giants covers a vast portion of the world. Advanced technology is likely to consolidate economic and political clout to a greater degree. The offensive capability of the leading countries is unmatched in the annals of time.
Enabled by political allies and an accommodating high court, the executive office has been transformed into the most powerful and unaccountable entity of the state in history.
Consider this confluence and you see the threat.
An unbroken thread links previous lawless actions to ongoing menaces. Both were premised on the overconfidence of invincibility.
You see much the same in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in expansive ambitions, and in the global depredation by massive conglomerates.
However, unfettered might does not make right. It makes for instability, revolution, and bloodshed.
The lessons of the past reveal that rules and conventions to check the influential also safeguard them. Absent these limits, their relentless pursuit for more power and wealth in time lead to their downfall – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And risk global conflict.
Such contempt for legal order will haunt international stability – and indeed civilization – for a long time.
