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His national and international policies – ranging from the effort to overturn the election five years ago to current actions and threats – undermine not only domestic and international law. But that’s not all.

These actions jeopardize the fundamental meaning of a civilized world.

A moral purpose of civilized society is to stop the dominant from preying upon and using the less powerful. Otherwise, we would be permanently immersed in a brutish war where only the fittest wins.

This principle is central of the nation's founding texts. It’s also the foundation of the postwar international order championed by the US, which stresses collective action, popular sovereignty, fundamental freedoms, and the supremacy of law.

Yet, it is a fragile construct, often broken by those who choose to misuse their authority. Maintaining it demands that the those in charge have enough integrity to refrain from seeking temporary advantages, and that the rest of us hold them accountable should they falter.

Absolute power does not make right. It makes for instability, chaos, and conflict.

Each instance individuals, companies, or nations that are richer and more powerful prey upon those that are weaker, the fabric of society frays. If these actions are left unchecked, the structure collapses. Without intervention, the world can plunge into chaos and war. It has happened before.

Today, we live in a society and world with deepening divides. Political and economic power are increasingly centralized than ever before. This encourages the powerful to leverage their position against the weaker because they perceive themselves as above the law.

The resources of a small group of billionaires is staggering. The reach of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace covers numerous countries. Advanced technology is likely to further concentrate economic and political clout even more. The offensive capability 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 instrument of state power in history.

Consider this confluence and you grasp the looming crisis.

An unbroken thread ties past breaches of norms to ongoing threats. Both were premised on the arrogance of invincibility.

There is much the same in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in strategic threats, and in the global depredation by industrial titans.

But, unfettered might does not create right. It produces fragility, upended order, and bloodshed.

History shows that frameworks designed to constrain the influential also shield them. Absent these limits, their insatiable demands for greater influence and riches in time lead to their downfall – and with them their corporations, nations, or empires. And threaten world war.

This kind of disregard for rules will cast a long shadow over America and the global community – and indeed civilization – for years to come.