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His national and international initiatives – from the challenge to the democratic process in the past to recent moves and threats – erode both domestic and international jurisprudence. But that’s not all.

They threaten the core idea of a civilized world.

The guiding principle of civilized society is to stop the more powerful from preying upon and using the less powerful. Without this, we risk being permanently immersed in a conflict of all against all where survival of the strongest could survive.

This concept is embedded of America’s founding documents. It is equally the core of the modern framework of international relations championed by the America, which stresses multilateralism, democratic governance, fundamental freedoms, and the legal authority.

Yet, it is a fragile ideal, frequently ignored by those who seek to abuse their influence. Maintaining it necessitates that the powerful have a sense of duty to abstain from seeking immediate gains, and that the public hold them accountable when they fail.

Unchecked strength does not equal right. It results in turmoil, chaos, and war.

Each instance individuals, companies, or nations that are wealthier and stronger attack and exploit those that are not, the fabric of society unravels. Should such behavior are not contained, the structure collapses. Allowing it to persist, the world can fall into chaos and war. It has happened before.

We now inhabit a international landscape grown vastly more unequal. Influence and wealth are held by fewer hands than in recent memory. This creates conditions for the privileged to leverage their position against the weaker because they act with a sense of omnipotent.

The resources of a handful of billionaires is difficult to fathom. The influence of global industrial giants covers a vast portion of the world. Advanced technology is likely to further concentrate economic and political clout even more. The military might of the leading countries is unprecedented in recorded history.

Supported by a compliant faction and a sympathetic supreme court, the presidency has been transformed into the most dominant and unchecked instrument of the state in the modern era.

Combine these factors and you grasp the danger.

An unbroken thread links previous transgressions to ongoing threats. Each were founded upon the overconfidence of absolute power.

One observes parallel dynamics in other global contexts: in wars of aggression, in expansive ambitions, and in the global depredation by industrial titans.

Yet, raw power does not create right. It produces instability, upended order, and armed conflict.

Historical evidence demonstrates that rules and conventions to constrain the influential also safeguard them. If these guardrails are removed, their insatiable demands for more power and wealth in time cause their collapse – and with them their enterprises, countries, or domains. And pave the way for global conflict.

Such lawlessness will haunt America and the global community – and the very idea of a rules-based order – for the foreseeable future.