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His national and international strategies – including the attempted coup previously to recent incursions and warnings – weaken both national and global jurisprudence. But that’s not all.

They endanger the core idea of a civilized world.

The guiding principle of any advanced culture is to forestall the more powerful from preying upon and using the less powerful. Without this, we would be locked in a brutish war where only the fittest wins.

This ideal is embedded of America’s founding documents. It’s also the heart of the modern framework of international relations supported by the America, built on collective action, democratic governance, human rights, and the legal authority.

But, it is a delicate ideal, frequently ignored by those who would exploit their influence. Maintaining it necessitates that the powerful have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that the public ensure they answer for their actions when they fail.

Unfettered might does not equal right. It makes for turmoil, disruption, and hostilities.

Each instance people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful prey upon those that are not, the fabric of our shared norms frays. Should such behavior are allowed to continue, the fabric unravels. Allowing it to persist, the world can descend into instability and violence. History provides ample precedent.

Our current reality is a international landscape marked by extreme inequality. Influence and wealth are more concentrated than in modern history. This creates conditions for the elite to take advantage of the weaker because they feel untouchable.

The resources of a small group of billionaires is difficult to fathom. The influence of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors extends over a vast portion of the world. Artificial intelligence is poised to centralize resources and influence to a greater degree. The destructive power of the world's largest nations is unprecedented in the annals of time.

Empowered by a compliant faction and a pliant supreme court, the executive office has been turned into the most powerful and unaccountable entity of state power in history.

Consider this confluence and you see the looming crisis.

A clear connection ties past lawless actions to ongoing provocations. Each were based on the overconfidence of invincibility.

You see much the same in the actions of other powers: in military conflicts, in expansive ambitions, and in the global depredation by powerful corporate entities.

Yet, strength without restraint does not create right. It makes for fragility, revolution, and war.

History shows that rules and conventions to limit the powerful also protect them. Without such constraints, their endless appetite for greater influence and riches eventually cause their collapse – taking down their enterprises, countries, or domains. And threaten international catastrophe.

This blatant contempt for legal order will cast a long shadow over the nation and the world – and the very idea of civilized conduct – for the foreseeable future.