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His internal and external strategies – ranging from the challenge to the democratic process in the past to recent moves and statements – undermine not only domestic and international law. However, the issue goes deeper.

These actions jeopardize the core idea of a civilized world.

A moral purpose of any advanced culture is to stop the more powerful from harming and taking advantage of the vulnerable. Otherwise, we would be locked in a conflict of all against all where might makes right wins.

This concept lies at the center of the Declaration and Constitution. It’s also the core of the postwar international order supported by the United States, emphasizing international cooperation, democracy, fundamental freedoms, and the supremacy of law.

But, it is a vulnerable construct, often broken by those who seek to abuse their power. Preserving it demands that the influential have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us ensure they answer for their actions when they fail.

Absolute power is not right. It makes for uncertainty, upheaval, and war.

Each instance people or corporations or countries that are advantaged target and use those that are less so, the fabric of society frays. Should such behavior are not contained, the structure collapses. If not stopped, the world can plunge into instability and violence. It has happened before.

We now inhabit a society and world grown vastly more unequal. Authority and resources are more concentrated than in modern history. This invites the powerful to take advantage of the disadvantaged because they feel above the law.

The wealth of certain tycoons is almost beyond comprehension. The power of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors covers numerous countries. Advanced technology is poised to centralize wealth and power to a greater degree. The offensive capability of the leading countries is unprecedented in recorded history.

Supported by a compliant faction and a sympathetic supreme court, the presidency has been made into the most powerful and unaccountable agent of state power in history.

Put it all together and you see the threat.

A clear connection connects earlier lawless actions to current threats. These were founded upon the hubris of omnipotence.

One observes parallel dynamics in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in coercive diplomacy, and in the global depredation by powerful corporate entities.

Yet, raw power does not establish right. It produces instability, upheaval, and bloodshed.

History shows that laws and norms to check the powerful also shield them. Absent these limits, their endless appetite for more power and wealth ultimately lead to their downfall – and with them their corporations, nations, or empires. And threaten global conflict.

Such disregard for rules will cast a long shadow over international stability – and the very idea of a rules-based order – for a long time.