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His domestic and foreign strategies – ranging from the effort to overturn the election five years ago to latest actions and warnings – weaken not only national and global law. However, the issue goes deeper.

These actions endanger the core idea of civilization itself.

The moral purpose of a functioning society is to forestall the stronger from preying upon and using the less powerful. Without this, we could find ourselves permanently immersed in a brutish war where might makes right prevails.

This principle is embedded of the Declaration and Constitution. This is also the foundation of the postwar international order championed by the United States, emphasizing collective action, democratic governance, human rights, and the legal authority.

Yet, it is a delicate ideal, easily violated by those who choose to misuse their influence. Maintaining it requires that the powerful have enough integrity to refrain from seeking short-term wins, and that the public hold them accountable should they falter.

Unfettered might does not equal right. It leads to instability, upheaval, and hostilities.

Every time entities that are advantaged target and use those that are weaker, the structure of our shared norms unravels. If these actions are allowed to continue, the structure collapses. If not stopped, the world can plunge into disorder and conflict. History provides ample precedent.

Our current reality is a international landscape marked by extreme inequality. Authority and resources are held by fewer hands than ever before. This encourages the powerful to leverage their position against the less fortunate because they perceive themselves as untouchable.

The wealth of a small group of tycoons is difficult to fathom. The influence of global industrial giants covers numerous countries. AI is likely to centralize economic and political clout even more. The military might of the major powers is unprecedented in recorded history.

Enabled by complicit legislators and a sympathetic high court, the highest office has been made into the supreme and answerable-to-none agent of state power in recent memory.

Put it all together and you grasp the threat.

A clear connection ties previous transgressions to current provocations. Each were based on the arrogance of invincibility.

There is a similar pattern in international affairs: in wars of aggression, in coercive diplomacy, and in the global depredation by massive conglomerates.

Yet, strength without restraint does not make right. It makes for instability, upended order, and armed conflict.

The lessons of the past reveal that laws and norms to constrain the influential also safeguard them. Absent these limits, their insatiable demands for increased control and resources ultimately lead to their downfall – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for global conflict.

Such disregard for rules will cast a long shadow over America and the global community – and the very idea of civilization – for the foreseeable future.