Trump's Actions Present a Threat to Our Social Fabric.
The internal and external initiatives – ranging from the challenge to the democratic process in the past to latest actions and threats – weaken not only national and global jurisprudence. However, the issue goes deeper.
These actions jeopardize the fundamental meaning of a civilized world.
A ethical foundation of any advanced culture is to forestall the stronger from preying upon and using the vulnerable. Failing that, we would be trapped in a conflict of all against all where only the fittest prevails.
This ideal is embedded of the nation's founding texts. It is equally the heart of the global system established after WWII supported by the America, emphasizing multilateralism, popular sovereignty, human rights, and the rule of law.
However, it is a delicate construct, frequently ignored by those who would exploit their influence. Preserving it necessitates that the those in charge have enough integrity to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that the rest of us ensure they answer for their actions should they falter.
Absolute power is not right. It leads to instability, disruption, and conflict.
Every time entities that are advantaged prey upon those that are not, the structure of society unravels. Should such behavior are allowed to continue, the structure collapses. Allowing it to persist, the world can descend into instability and violence. It has happened before.
We now inhabit a global community grown vastly more unequal. Influence and wealth are increasingly centralized than in recent memory. This invites the powerful to exploit the less fortunate because they perceive themselves as omnipotent.
The fortunes of a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals is staggering. The influence of global industrial giants extends over a vast portion of the world. Advanced technology is poised to consolidate economic and political clout further. The offensive capability of the leading countries is without parallel in the annals of time.
Enabled by complicit legislators and a sympathetic judicial body, the executive office has been transformed into the supreme and answerable-to-none entity of state power in history.
Combine these factors and you see the looming crisis.
A clear connection connects past breaches of norms to present-day menaces. These were founded upon the arrogance of absolute power.
You see much the same in the actions of other powers: in territorial invasions, in strategic threats, and in the worldwide exploitation by powerful corporate entities.
But, strength without restraint does not establish right. It makes for fragility, upheaval, and bloodshed.
The lessons of the past reveal that laws and norms to constrain the powerful also safeguard them. If these guardrails are removed, their relentless pursuit for greater influence and riches ultimately lead to their downfall – along with their enterprises, countries, or domains. And threaten global conflict.
This kind of contempt for legal order will haunt the nation and the world – and the very idea of a rules-based order – for the foreseeable future.
