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The domestic and foreign strategies – from the effort to overturn the election in the past to recent moves and threats – erode not only domestic and international law. The implications are broader.

These actions threaten the core idea of what we mean by.

The guiding principle of any advanced culture is to prevent the stronger from harming and taking advantage of the less powerful. Failing that, we risk being locked in a conflict of all against all where survival of the strongest prevails.

This ideal is central of America’s founding documents. It is equally the core of the modern framework of international relations advocated by the America, emphasizing collective action, democracy, fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.

However, it is a vulnerable construct, easily violated by those who choose to misuse their power. Maintaining it requires that the influential have enough integrity to refrain from seeking temporary advantages, and that the public demand responsibility should they falter.

Absolute power is not right. It results in uncertainty, chaos, and conflict.

Whenever people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful attack and exploit those that are less so, the framework of civilization unravels. Should such behavior are left unchecked, the structure collapses. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge into instability and violence. It has happened before.

We now inhabit a society and world marked by extreme inequality. Political and economic power are increasingly centralized than ever before. This invites the privileged to take advantage of the weaker because they perceive themselves as above the law.

The fortunes of certain tycoons is difficult to fathom. The power of global industrial giants spans a vast portion of the world. AI is poised to further concentrate resources and influence even more. The military might of the leading countries is unprecedented in recorded history.

Enabled by complicit legislators and a sympathetic judicial body, the presidency has been turned into the most dominant and unchecked entity of state power in history.

Put it all together and you see the danger.

A direct line ties earlier lawless actions to ongoing provocations. These were based on the hubris of absolute power.

You see much the same in international affairs: in wars of aggression, in coercive diplomacy, and in the rampant monopolization by massive conglomerates.

However, strength without restraint does not create right. It fosters uncertainty, revolution, and bloodshed.

The lessons of the past reveal that rules and conventions to check the powerful also protect them. Absent these limits, their endless appetite for increased control and resources in time cause their collapse – taking down their corporations, nations, or empires. And threaten world war.

This blatant lawlessness will haunt America and the global community – and the very idea of civilized conduct – for the foreseeable future.