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His national and international strategies – ranging from the challenge to the democratic process five years ago to latest moves and threats – undermine both national and global jurisprudence. But that’s not all.

These actions threaten the fundamental meaning of what we mean by.

The ethical foundation of any advanced culture is to stop the more powerful from harming and taking advantage of the less powerful. Otherwise, we would be locked in a brutish war where might makes right 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 international cooperation, democratic governance, human rights, and the rule of law.

But, it is a delicate ideal, easily violated by those who choose to misuse their influence. Maintaining it requires that the influential have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that society ensure they answer for their actions when they fail.

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

Whenever people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful prey upon those that are weaker, the fabric of our shared norms unravels. Should such behavior are allowed to continue, the structure collapses. If not stopped, the world can plunge into instability and violence. It has happened before.

We now inhabit a global community grown vastly more unequal. Influence and wealth are more concentrated than ever before. This creates conditions for the privileged to leverage their position against the less fortunate because they act with a sense of above the law.

The fortunes of a small group of billionaires is difficult to fathom. The influence of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace extends over much of the globe. Advanced technology is poised to consolidate resources and influence even more. The destructive power of the major powers is unprecedented in human history.

Enabled by political allies and an accommodating judicial body, the highest office has been turned into the most powerful and unaccountable instrument of government in recent memory.

Put it all together and you perceive the looming crisis.

A direct line ties previous breaches of norms to current menaces. Each were founded upon the hubris of omnipotence.

You see much the same in other global contexts: in wars of aggression, in strategic threats, and in the worldwide exploitation by industrial titans.

Yet, raw power does not make right. It fosters instability, revolution, and armed conflict.

History shows that rules and conventions to check the influential also shield them. Absent these limits, their insatiable demands for greater influence and riches in time bring them down – along with their enterprises, countries, or domains. And risk world war.

This kind of lawlessness will plague the nation and the world – and the very idea of a rules-based order – for a long time.