Trump's Policies Pose a Risk to Civilization.
His national and international strategies – from the challenge to the democratic process in the past to current moves and warnings – erode not only domestic and international jurisprudence. But that’s not all.
These actions jeopardize the fundamental meaning of civilization itself.
A moral purpose of civilized society is to prevent the more powerful from attacking and exploiting the weaker. Without this, we risk being locked in a brutish war where survival of the strongest prevails.
This ideal is embedded of the Declaration and Constitution. It is equally the core of the modern framework of international relations supported by the US, built on multilateralism, democratic governance, human rights, and the legal authority.
However, it is a fragile principle, frequently ignored by those who choose to misuse their power. Maintaining it requires that the influential have the moral fortitude to abstain from seeking temporary advantages, and that society ensure they answer for their actions if they don't.
Unchecked strength does not equal right. It leads to uncertainty, disruption, and hostilities.
Every time people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful prey upon those that are not, the fabric of society frays. If these actions are allowed to continue, the structure collapses. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge into instability and violence. It has happened before.
We now inhabit a global community grown vastly more unequal. Authority and resources are held by fewer hands than in recent memory. This invites the privileged to take advantage of the weaker because they act with a sense of omnipotent.
The fortunes of certain ultra-wealthy individuals is difficult to fathom. The reach of global industrial giants covers a vast portion of the world. Artificial intelligence is likely to consolidate economic and political clout to a greater degree. The military might of the world's largest nations is unmatched in human history.
Supported by a compliant faction and an accommodating judicial body, the presidency has been made into the supreme and answerable-to-none agent of state power in recent memory.
Put it all together and you grasp the danger.
An unbroken thread ties past breaches of norms to ongoing threats. These were based on the arrogance of omnipotence.
You see parallel dynamics in international affairs: in military conflicts, in coercive diplomacy, and in the worldwide exploitation by powerful corporate entities.
However, raw power does not create right. It produces uncertainty, upended order, and bloodshed.
The lessons of the past reveal that rules and conventions to check the influential also safeguard them. If these guardrails are removed, their relentless pursuit for increased control and resources ultimately cause their collapse – along with their enterprises, countries, or domains. And threaten global conflict.
This blatant disregard for rules will cast a long shadow over the nation and the world – and the very idea of civilization – for a long time.
