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The domestic and foreign strategies – including the challenge to the democratic process in the past to latest actions and warnings – erode both domestic and international jurisprudence. The implications are broader.

These actions threaten the core idea of civilization itself.

A moral purpose of any advanced culture is to forestall the more powerful from preying upon and using the vulnerable. Without this, we risk being trapped in a brutish war where survival of the strongest wins.

This concept is embedded of the Declaration and Constitution. It is equally the core of the global system established after WWII supported by the America, built on collective action, democracy, individual liberties, and the rule of law.

But, it is a delicate principle, easily violated by those who would exploit their influence. Maintaining it demands that the powerful have enough integrity to avoid seeking immediate gains, and that the rest of us demand responsibility if they don't.

Absolute power does not equal right. It leads to turmoil, upheaval, and conflict.

Whenever entities that are richer and more powerful target and use those that are less so, the framework of civilization weakens. If such aggression are left unchecked, the fabric unravels. If not stopped, the world can descend into chaos and war. It has happened before.

Today, we live in a international landscape grown vastly more unequal. Authority and resources are held by fewer hands than in recent memory. This invites the privileged to leverage their position against the less fortunate because they act with a sense of untouchable.

The resources of a small group of billionaires is difficult to fathom. The power of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace covers numerous countries. Artificial intelligence is poised to further concentrate resources and influence even more. The destructive power of the world's largest nations is without parallel in recorded history.

Enabled by a compliant faction and an accommodating high court, the highest office has been made into the most dominant and unchecked agent of the state in the modern era.

Put it all together and you see the danger.

A clear connection connects earlier lawless actions to ongoing threats. Both were premised on the arrogance of absolute power.

One observes much the same in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in coercive diplomacy, and in the rampant monopolization by massive conglomerates.

But, unfettered might does not establish right. It produces uncertainty, upheaval, and bloodshed.

Historical evidence demonstrates that frameworks designed to constrain the influential also shield them. Absent these limits, their endless appetite for increased control and resources eventually lead to their downfall – taking down their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for international catastrophe.

Such lawlessness will cast a long shadow over international stability – and indeed civilization – for a long time.