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The national and international policies – including the challenge to the democratic process five years ago to recent actions and threats – erode both domestic and international legal frameworks. But that’s not all.

They threaten the fundamental meaning of civilization itself.

The guiding principle of a functioning society is to stop the more powerful from attacking and exploiting the vulnerable. Otherwise, we could find ourselves locked in a conflict of all against all where only the fittest could survive.

This ideal is central of the Declaration and Constitution. It’s also the heart of the global system established after WWII supported by the America, built on international cooperation, democratic governance, individual liberties, and the legal authority.

However, it is a vulnerable construct, frequently ignored by those who would exploit their influence. Maintaining it requires that the influential have enough integrity to abstain from seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us ensure they answer for their actions should they falter.

Unfettered might is not right. It makes for instability, upheaval, and war.

Every time individuals, companies, or nations that are advantaged target and use those that are not, the structure of our shared norms frays. Should such behavior are not contained, the structure collapses. Allowing it to persist, the world can descend into disorder and conflict. It has happened before.

Today, we live in a global community grown vastly more unequal. Authority and resources are increasingly centralized than ever before. This encourages the elite to leverage their position against the less fortunate because they perceive themselves as omnipotent.

The wealth of a small group of tycoons is almost beyond comprehension. The influence of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors covers numerous countries. Artificial intelligence is likely to centralize economic and political clout to a greater degree. The military might of the leading countries is unprecedented in the annals of time.

Empowered by a compliant faction and an accommodating supreme court, the executive office has been transformed into the most powerful and unaccountable entity of government in recent memory.

Combine these factors and you perceive the danger.

An unbroken thread links past breaches of norms to present-day provocations. Both were premised on the arrogance of invincibility.

One observes much the same in the actions of other powers: in territorial invasions, in coercive diplomacy, and in the global depredation by massive conglomerates.

But, unfettered might does not make right. It fosters instability, upheaval, and bloodshed.

History shows that laws and norms to constrain the influential also protect them. Without such constraints, their relentless pursuit for increased control and resources eventually bring them down – taking down their corporations, nations, or empires. And risk world war.

This blatant contempt for legal order will haunt America and the global community – and indeed a rules-based order – for years to come.