Trump's Policies Present a Risk to Civilized Society.

His national and international strategies – from the effort to overturn the election five years ago to recent moves and threats – erode not only domestic and international legal frameworks. However, the issue goes deeper.

These actions threaten the core idea of a civilized world.

A moral purpose of civilized society is to stop the more powerful from preying upon and using the weaker. Failing that, we risk being trapped in a state of nature where survival of the strongest wins.

This ideal is central of the Declaration and Constitution. This is also the heart of the postwar international order championed by the US, built on multilateralism, democracy, individual liberties, and the rule of law.

But, it is a vulnerable construct, frequently ignored by those who seek to abuse their authority. Preserving it requires that the influential have a sense of duty to abstain from seeking immediate gains, and that the rest of us demand responsibility when they fail.

Unfettered might does not equal right. It results in uncertainty, disruption, and war.

Each instance people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful target and use those that are less so, the structure of civilization weakens. Should such behavior are allowed to continue, the system fails. If not stopped, the world can plunge into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.

We now inhabit a global community with deepening divides. Political and economic power are held by fewer hands than in recent memory. This invites the elite to leverage their position against the weaker because they perceive themselves as untouchable.

The wealth of a handful of tycoons is staggering. The influence of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors covers numerous countries. Advanced technology is could further concentrate economic and political clout to a greater degree. The offensive capability of the major powers is unprecedented in recorded history.

Enabled by a compliant faction and a pliant supreme court, the highest office has been turned into the most powerful and unaccountable instrument of the state in the modern era.

Combine these factors and you see the threat.

A direct line ties past breaches of norms to present-day menaces. These were premised on the hubris of invincibility.

You see parallel dynamics in other global contexts: in wars of aggression, in expansive ambitions, and in the rampant monopolization by industrial titans.

Yet, unfettered might does not create right. It produces instability, revolution, and war.

The lessons of the past reveal that rules and conventions to check the influential also safeguard them. Without such constraints, their relentless pursuit for more power and wealth in time lead to their downfall – taking down their corporations, nations, or empires. And risk international catastrophe.

This blatant contempt for legal order will cast a long shadow over international stability – and indeed civilization – for the foreseeable future.