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The domestic and foreign policies – ranging from the challenge to the democratic process in the past to latest moves and statements – erode not only domestic and international legal frameworks. But that’s not all.

These actions threaten the core idea of civilization itself.

The guiding principle of civilized society is to forestall the stronger from attacking and exploiting the weaker. Failing that, we risk being locked in a brutish war where only the fittest wins.

This ideal is central of the Declaration and Constitution. It’s also the foundation of the postwar international order championed by the United States, which stresses multilateralism, democratic governance, fundamental freedoms, and the supremacy of law.

Yet, it is a delicate ideal, often broken by those who would exploit their power. Upholding it demands that the influential have the moral fortitude to avoid seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us ensure they answer for their actions if they don't.

Absolute power is not right. It results in instability, upheaval, and hostilities.

Each instance entities that are advantaged prey upon those that are less so, the fabric of our shared norms frays. If these actions are left unchecked, the structure collapses. Allowing it to persist, the world can fall into disorder and conflict. History provides ample precedent.

We now inhabit a global community grown vastly more unequal. Authority and resources are held by fewer hands than in recent memory. This encourages the privileged to take advantage of the weaker because they act with a sense of omnipotent.

The resources of certain ultra-wealthy individuals is staggering. The influence of global industrial giants extends over a vast portion of the world. Artificial intelligence is could consolidate resources and influence even more. The military might of the world's largest nations is unmatched in recorded history.

Supported by a compliant faction and a sympathetic judicial body, the presidency has been made into the supreme and answerable-to-none agent of state power in the modern era.

Consider this confluence and you perceive the threat.

An unbroken thread connects past transgressions to ongoing provocations. Both were founded upon the overconfidence of omnipotence.

One observes much the same in other global contexts: in wars of aggression, in coercive diplomacy, and in the global depredation by industrial titans.

However, raw power does not create right. It produces uncertainty, revolution, and bloodshed.

The lessons of the past reveal that laws and norms to limit the influential also shield them. Absent these limits, their endless appetite for more power and wealth eventually bring them down – and with them their corporations, nations, or empires. And risk global conflict.

This kind of disregard for rules will haunt international stability – and the very idea of a rules-based order – for years to come.