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His internal and external policies – including the challenge to the democratic process in the past to latest incursions and warnings – undermine not only domestic and international jurisprudence. But that’s not all.

These actions threaten the fundamental meaning of what we mean by.

The moral purpose of a functioning society is to stop the dominant from attacking and exploiting the vulnerable. Failing that, we risk being permanently immersed in a brutish war where might makes right prevails.

This concept is central of America’s founding documents. This is also the core of the postwar international order advocated by the United States, built on multilateralism, popular sovereignty, human rights, and the legal authority.

Yet, it is a fragile construct, easily violated by those who seek to abuse their influence. Upholding it necessitates that the influential have the moral fortitude to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that the rest of us hold them accountable should they falter.

Unfettered might does not equal right. It results in instability, upheaval, and war.

Each instance entities that are advantaged prey upon those that are weaker, the fabric of society unravels. If such aggression are not contained, the system fails. Without intervention, the world can plunge into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.

We now inhabit a global community marked by extreme inequality. Influence and wealth are more concentrated than ever before. This invites the privileged to take advantage of the weaker because they perceive themselves as omnipotent.

The resources of certain tycoons is almost beyond comprehension. The power of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors extends over a vast portion of the world. Artificial intelligence is likely to consolidate resources and influence to a greater degree. The military might of the world's largest nations is without parallel in human history.

Empowered by complicit legislators and a pliant high court, the presidency has been transformed into the most dominant and unchecked entity of state power in history.

Consider this confluence and you see the threat.

An unbroken thread connects past breaches of norms to current menaces. Both were founded upon the overconfidence of absolute power.

One observes a similar pattern in the actions of other powers: in territorial invasions, in coercive diplomacy, and in the global depredation by powerful corporate entities.

But, unfettered might does not establish right. It makes for fragility, revolution, and armed conflict.

History shows that laws and norms to limit the powerful also safeguard them. Without such constraints, their relentless pursuit for more power and wealth ultimately cause their collapse – and with them their enterprises, countries, or domains. And risk global conflict.

Such lawlessness will plague the nation and the world – and indeed civilized conduct – for the foreseeable future.