🔗 Share this article

The internal and external initiatives – ranging from the effort to overturn the election five years ago to current incursions and warnings – weaken both domestic and international legal frameworks. However, the issue goes deeper.

They endanger the core idea of civilization itself.

A guiding principle of a functioning society is to prevent the stronger from attacking and exploiting the weaker. Without this, we risk being permanently immersed in a brutish war where might makes right could survive.

This principle lies at the center of the nation's founding texts. It is equally the core of the postwar international order advocated by the US, which stresses multilateralism, democratic governance, individual liberties, and the rule of law.

However, it is a fragile principle, frequently ignored by those who would exploit their power. Upholding it necessitates that the powerful have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that the public ensure they answer for their actions should they falter.

Unchecked strength is not right. It leads to turmoil, disruption, and war.

Whenever people or corporations or countries that are advantaged prey upon those that are not, the framework of our shared norms weakens. If these actions are left unchecked, the fabric unravels. Without intervention, the world can plunge into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.

We now inhabit a society and world with deepening divides. Political and economic power are held by fewer hands than in modern history. This invites the powerful to exploit the disadvantaged because they feel above the law.

The wealth of a small group of tycoons is difficult to fathom. The reach of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace spans a vast portion of the world. Artificial intelligence is likely to centralize economic and political clout even more. The military might of the world's largest nations is unmatched in the annals of time.

Enabled by political allies and a sympathetic high court, the presidency has been turned into the most powerful and unaccountable entity of the state in history.

Consider this confluence and you grasp the threat.

An unbroken thread connects earlier lawless actions to ongoing threats. These were premised on the hubris of omnipotence.

You see a similar pattern in international affairs: in territorial invasions, in expansive ambitions, and in the rampant monopolization by powerful corporate entities.

But, unfettered might does not create right. It fosters instability, upheaval, and armed conflict.

The lessons of the past reveal that rules and conventions to constrain the powerful also safeguard them. Absent these limits, their endless appetite for more power and wealth eventually bring them down – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for global conflict.

This kind of contempt for legal order will plague America and the global community – and indeed civilization – for the foreseeable future.