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The national and international initiatives – from the effort to overturn the election five years ago to latest incursions and warnings – undermine both national and global jurisprudence. But that’s not all.

They threaten the fundamental meaning of a civilized world.

A ethical foundation of any advanced culture is to prevent the stronger from preying upon and using the less powerful. Otherwise, we risk being trapped in a brutish war where might makes right wins.

This principle is central of the Declaration and Constitution. This is also the foundation of the global system established after WWII championed by the US, built on collective action, democracy, fundamental freedoms, and the legal authority.

However, it is a fragile ideal, easily violated by those who choose to misuse their authority. Maintaining it demands that the powerful have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us ensure they answer for their actions when they fail.

Absolute power is not right. It results in instability, disruption, and hostilities.

Every time entities that are wealthier and stronger attack and exploit those that are weaker, the framework of society weakens. If these actions are left unchecked, the structure collapses. Without intervention, the world can descend into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.

We now inhabit a international landscape grown vastly more unequal. Authority and resources are held by fewer hands than in modern history. This encourages the elite to leverage their position against the less fortunate because they act with a sense of untouchable.

The fortunes of certain tycoons is staggering. The influence of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors spans much of the globe. Artificial intelligence is could further concentrate economic and political clout to a greater degree. The offensive capability of the leading countries is unprecedented in the annals of time.

Supported by a compliant faction and an accommodating supreme court, the executive office has been turned into the supreme and answerable-to-none agent of government in recent memory.

Combine these factors and you perceive the looming crisis.

A clear connection connects earlier transgressions to ongoing menaces. Both were premised on the arrogance of absolute power.

There is parallel dynamics in the actions of other powers: in wars of aggression, in coercive diplomacy, and in the worldwide exploitation by massive conglomerates.

But, strength without restraint does not create right. It makes for uncertainty, upheaval, and bloodshed.

The lessons of the past reveal that laws and norms to limit the influential also shield them. Absent these limits, their relentless pursuit for increased control and resources eventually bring them down – taking down their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for world war.

Such disregard for rules will cast a long shadow over the nation and the world – and indeed civilized conduct – for a long time.