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His internal and external initiatives – from the attempted coup five years ago to current actions and warnings – erode both domestic and international legal frameworks. However, the issue goes deeper.

These actions jeopardize the very concept of what we mean by.

A moral purpose of civilized society is to forestall the stronger from preying upon and using the weaker. Failing that, we would be locked in a brutish war where only the fittest could survive.

This concept is central of America’s founding documents. This is also the foundation of the modern framework of international relations advocated by the US, built on collective action, democratic governance, human rights, and the supremacy of law.

However, it is a vulnerable construct, easily violated by those who would exploit their influence. Maintaining it necessitates that the influential have the moral fortitude to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that the public demand responsibility when they fail.

Absolute power is not right. It leads to turmoil, chaos, and hostilities.

Each instance people or corporations or countries that are wealthier and stronger attack and exploit those that are weaker, the framework of our shared norms unravels. Should such behavior are allowed to continue, the fabric unravels. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.

Our current reality is a society and world grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are more concentrated than in recent memory. This encourages the privileged to exploit the disadvantaged because they act with a sense of omnipotent.

The resources of a small group of ultra-wealthy individuals is staggering. The influence of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace spans a vast portion of the world. Advanced technology is likely to centralize economic and political clout to a greater degree. The destructive power of the world's largest nations is unprecedented in the annals of time.

Enabled by political allies and a pliant high court, the executive office has been transformed into the most powerful and unaccountable entity of state power in the modern era.

Combine these factors and you see the danger.

A clear connection connects earlier lawless actions to ongoing menaces. Each were premised on the arrogance of invincibility.

There is parallel dynamics in the actions of other powers: in territorial invasions, in expansive ambitions, and in the global depredation by powerful corporate entities.

Yet, unfettered might does not establish right. It makes for uncertainty, revolution, and bloodshed.

Historical evidence demonstrates that laws and norms to constrain the powerful also safeguard them. Absent these limits, their relentless pursuit for greater influence and riches ultimately bring them down – along with their enterprises, countries, or domains. And pave the way for international catastrophe.

This blatant contempt for legal order will cast a long shadow over the nation and the world – and the very idea of civilized conduct – for a long time.