Donald Trump's Policies Present a Risk to Our Social Fabric.

His national and international policies – from the attempted coup five years ago to current incursions and statements – erode both domestic and international legal frameworks. However, the issue goes deeper.

These actions threaten the core idea of a civilized world.

The guiding principle of any advanced culture is to forestall the stronger from harming and taking advantage of the less powerful. Otherwise, we risk being permanently immersed in a state of nature where only the fittest could survive.

This concept is central of the nation's founding texts. This is also the heart of the postwar international order advocated by the America, built on collective action, democratic governance, fundamental freedoms, and the legal authority.

However, it is a delicate ideal, often broken by those who would exploit their influence. Maintaining it necessitates that the powerful have enough integrity to avoid seeking immediate gains, and that society ensure they answer for their actions should they falter.

Unchecked strength is not right. It makes for instability, upheaval, and conflict.

Whenever individuals, companies, or nations that are advantaged attack and exploit those that are not, the framework of society unravels. Should such behavior are left unchecked, the fabric unravels. Allowing it to persist, the world can fall into instability and violence. It has happened before.

We now inhabit a international landscape with deepening divides. Political and economic power are held by fewer hands than in modern history. This invites the elite to exploit the less fortunate because they feel untouchable.

The resources of a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals is almost beyond comprehension. The reach of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors spans much of the globe. Artificial intelligence is poised to consolidate wealth and power even more. The destructive power of the major powers is without parallel in recorded history.

Enabled by political allies and a pliant high court, the executive office has been made into the supreme and answerable-to-none instrument of state power in recent memory.

Put it all together and you perceive the looming crisis.

An unbroken thread ties previous lawless actions to present-day menaces. These were premised on the arrogance of invincibility.

There is much the same in other global contexts: in military conflicts, in expansive ambitions, and in the global depredation by massive conglomerates.

Yet, unfettered might does not establish right. It fosters uncertainty, upended order, and war.

Historical evidence demonstrates that laws and norms to check the influential also protect them. If these guardrails are removed, their insatiable demands for greater influence and riches eventually bring them down – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And risk international catastrophe.

This kind of contempt for legal order will cast a long shadow over America and the global community – and the very idea of civilization – for years to come.