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The national and international initiatives – ranging from the challenge to the democratic process five years ago to current moves and warnings – undermine not only domestic and international jurisprudence. The implications are broader.

These actions jeopardize the very concept of a civilized world.

A moral purpose of civilized society is to stop the stronger from harming and taking advantage of the weaker. Without this, we risk being trapped in a state of nature where survival of the strongest wins.

This concept is embedded of the Declaration and Constitution. It’s also the core of the postwar international order championed by the US, which stresses multilateralism, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.

However, it is a vulnerable principle, easily violated by those who seek to abuse their authority. Maintaining it necessitates that the those in charge have a sense of duty to abstain from seeking short-term wins, and that society demand responsibility if they don't.

Unchecked strength is not right. It leads to turmoil, chaos, and hostilities.

Whenever individuals, companies, or nations that are advantaged attack and exploit those that are not, the fabric of our shared norms frays. Should such behavior are left unchecked, the fabric unravels. Without intervention, the world can fall into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.

We now inhabit a international landscape with deepening divides. Political and economic power are more concentrated than in recent memory. This creates conditions for the powerful to leverage their position against the weaker because they perceive themselves as above the law.

The wealth of a small group of tycoons is staggering. The influence of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace covers a vast portion of the world. Artificial intelligence is poised to consolidate wealth and power further. The offensive capability of the leading countries is unmatched in the annals of time.

Supported by a compliant faction and a sympathetic supreme court, the executive office has been transformed into the supreme and answerable-to-none instrument of government in recent memory.

Combine these factors and you see the looming crisis.

An unbroken thread ties earlier lawless actions to current threats. Both were based on the hubris of omnipotence.

You see parallel dynamics in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in strategic threats, and in the rampant monopolization by industrial titans.

But, unfettered might does not create right. It makes for uncertainty, upended order, and bloodshed.

History shows that laws and norms to check the powerful also shield them. If these guardrails are removed, their endless appetite for increased control and resources in time cause their collapse – and with them their enterprises, countries, or domains. And risk international catastrophe.

Such contempt for legal order will haunt the nation and the world – and the very idea of civilization – for years to come.