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His national and international initiatives – including the attempted coup in the past to recent incursions and statements – weaken not only domestic and international jurisprudence. But that’s not all.

They threaten the very concept of civilization itself.

A moral purpose of any advanced culture is to forestall the dominant from attacking and exploiting the weaker. Otherwise, we risk being trapped in a brutish war where only the fittest wins.

This concept lies at the center of the Declaration and Constitution. It’s also the foundation of the global system established after WWII supported by the US, built on collective action, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.

However, it is a fragile principle, often broken by those who would exploit their authority. Preserving it requires that the influential have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking temporary advantages, and that the rest of us demand responsibility should they falter.

Absolute power is not right. It results in turmoil, upheaval, and war.

Each instance individuals, companies, or nations that are advantaged prey upon those that are not, the structure of society weakens. If such aggression are not contained, the system fails. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge into chaos and war. It has happened before.

We now inhabit a global community grown vastly more unequal. Influence and wealth are held by fewer hands than in recent memory. This invites the elite to exploit the weaker because they feel untouchable.

The fortunes of certain ultra-wealthy individuals is difficult to fathom. The influence of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors covers much of the globe. Artificial intelligence is poised to centralize economic and political clout further. The military might of the world's largest nations is unprecedented in recorded history.

Supported by political allies and a sympathetic supreme court, the presidency has been transformed into the most dominant and unchecked instrument of state power in recent memory.

Combine these factors and you see the threat.

An unbroken thread links earlier lawless actions to ongoing menaces. Both were premised on the hubris of omnipotence.

There is much the same in international affairs: in wars of aggression, in expansive ambitions, and in the global depredation by massive conglomerates.

Yet, raw power does not make right. It makes for uncertainty, upended order, and war.

History shows that frameworks designed to limit the influential also shield them. Absent these limits, their insatiable demands for greater influence and riches in time cause their collapse – taking down their corporations, nations, or empires. And risk global conflict.

This blatant disregard for rules will cast a long shadow over international stability – and the very idea of civilization – for a long time.