Trump's Actions Constitute a Risk to Civilization.

His national and international strategies – including the effort to overturn the election five years ago to recent incursions and warnings – undermine not only national and global jurisprudence. However, the issue goes deeper.

These actions endanger the core idea of a civilized world.

The guiding principle of any advanced culture is to forestall the stronger from preying upon and using the weaker. Otherwise, we could find ourselves permanently immersed in a brutish war where survival of the strongest could survive.

This concept is central of the Declaration and Constitution. It’s also the foundation of the postwar international order championed by the United States, which stresses collective action, democratic governance, human rights, and the legal authority.

Yet, it is a delicate ideal, frequently ignored by those who would exploit their power. Preserving it demands that the powerful have the moral fortitude to abstain from seeking short-term wins, and that society demand responsibility when they fail.

Unfettered might does not make right. It makes for turmoil, upheaval, and war.

Every time entities that are advantaged prey upon those that are weaker, the structure of society weakens. If such aggression are allowed to continue, the system fails. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge into disorder and conflict. We have seen this pattern previously.

Our current reality is a society and world with deepening divides. Political and economic power are held by fewer hands than ever before. This invites the powerful to exploit the less fortunate because they perceive themselves as above the law.

The resources of certain billionaires is staggering. The power of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace extends over numerous countries. Advanced technology is poised to further concentrate economic and political clout to a greater degree. The offensive capability of the major powers is unprecedented in the annals of time.

Enabled by political allies and a sympathetic judicial body, the highest office has been made into the most dominant and unchecked entity of state power in recent memory.

Consider this confluence and you grasp the looming crisis.

A direct line ties previous breaches of norms to current threats. These were based on the hubris of invincibility.

One observes a similar pattern in international affairs: in wars of aggression, in coercive diplomacy, and in the global depredation by powerful corporate entities.

But, strength without restraint does not make right. It makes for instability, revolution, and armed conflict.

Historical evidence demonstrates that laws and norms to check the influential also protect them. Absent these limits, their endless appetite for greater influence and riches eventually lead to their downfall – taking down their enterprises, countries, or domains. And threaten world war.

This blatant lawlessness will plague the nation and the world – and indeed civilization – for a long time.