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His domestic and foreign policies – from the attempted coup five years ago to recent actions and threats – undermine not only domestic and international law. But that’s not all.

They jeopardize the very concept of civilization itself.

The ethical foundation of a functioning society is to prevent the dominant from harming and taking advantage of the less powerful. Failing that, we would be permanently immersed in a brutish war where survival of the strongest prevails.

This ideal is embedded of America’s founding documents. It’s also the heart of the modern framework of international relations supported by the US, emphasizing collective action, popular sovereignty, human rights, and the legal authority.

However, it is a vulnerable ideal, easily violated by those who choose to misuse their authority. Preserving it necessitates that the those in charge have enough integrity to abstain from seeking temporary advantages, and that the rest of us ensure they answer for their actions should they falter.

Unfettered might does not equal right. It leads to uncertainty, upheaval, and hostilities.

Whenever entities that are wealthier and stronger prey upon those that are not, the structure of our shared norms frays. If these actions are left unchecked, the system fails. Without intervention, the world can descend into instability and violence. History provides ample precedent.

We now inhabit a society and world with deepening divides. Influence and wealth are increasingly centralized than in modern history. This encourages the powerful to take advantage of the less fortunate because they act with a sense of untouchable.

The resources of certain billionaires is staggering. The influence of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors extends over a vast portion of the world. AI is poised to centralize economic and political clout to a greater degree. The offensive capability of the leading countries is without parallel in recorded history.

Enabled by complicit legislators and a pliant judicial body, the highest office has been turned into the most dominant and unchecked agent of the state in history.

Combine these factors and you grasp the looming crisis.

A clear connection connects past lawless actions to current menaces. Each were based on the overconfidence of absolute power.

You see a similar pattern in international affairs: in military conflicts, in coercive diplomacy, and in the worldwide exploitation by powerful corporate entities.

However, strength without restraint does not make right. It makes for uncertainty, upheaval, and bloodshed.

The lessons of the past reveal that rules and conventions to check the powerful also shield them. Absent these limits, their relentless pursuit for more power and wealth in time bring them down – and with them their enterprises, countries, or domains. And threaten global conflict.

This kind of contempt for legal order will cast a long shadow over the nation and the world – and the very idea of a rules-based order – for years to come.