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His domestic and foreign strategies – ranging from the effort to overturn the election five years ago to latest moves and statements – undermine both domestic and international law. However, the issue goes deeper.

They threaten the core idea of what we mean by.

A ethical foundation of a functioning society is to forestall the dominant from attacking and exploiting the vulnerable. Failing that, we would be locked in a conflict of all against all where might makes right could survive.

This ideal lies at the center of the Declaration and Constitution. It is equally the core of the postwar international order championed by the US, emphasizing multilateralism, democratic governance, individual liberties, and the legal authority.

However, it is a delicate construct, often broken by those who choose to misuse their authority. Preserving it necessitates that the those in charge have the moral fortitude to refrain from seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us demand responsibility when they fail.

Unchecked strength is not right. It results in uncertainty, upheaval, and war.

Every time entities that are richer and more powerful attack and exploit those that are weaker, the framework of civilization frays. Should such behavior are allowed to continue, the fabric unravels. Without intervention, the world can fall into chaos and war. It has happened before.

We now inhabit a global community marked by extreme inequality. Influence and wealth are more concentrated than in recent memory. This creates conditions for the elite to exploit the weaker because they act with a sense of untouchable.

The wealth of a small group of ultra-wealthy individuals is difficult to fathom. The influence of global industrial giants extends over a vast portion of the world. Advanced technology is could consolidate economic and political clout even more. The military might of the leading countries is without parallel in the annals of time.

Supported by complicit legislators and a sympathetic high court, the presidency has been transformed into the supreme and answerable-to-none entity of state power in recent memory.

Consider this confluence and you perceive the threat.

A direct line links previous breaches of norms to present-day threats. Both were based on the arrogance of omnipotence.

There is a similar pattern in the actions of other powers: in military conflicts, in expansive ambitions, and in the global depredation by powerful corporate entities.

Yet, strength without restraint does not make right. It makes for fragility, upheaval, and war.

History shows that laws and norms to constrain the influential also shield 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 world war.

This kind of disregard for rules will plague America and the global community – and indeed civilization – for years to come.