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The domestic and foreign initiatives – including the attempted coup five years ago to recent actions and statements – undermine not only national and global law. But that’s not all.

These actions endanger the core idea of civilization itself.

The guiding principle of any advanced culture is to forestall the stronger from attacking and exploiting the less powerful. Without this, we could find ourselves locked in a state of nature where might makes right wins.

This ideal is embedded of the nation's founding texts. It’s also the core of the modern framework of international relations supported by the United States, which stresses collective action, popular sovereignty, human rights, and the legal authority.

Yet, it is a fragile ideal, easily violated by those who seek to abuse their influence. Upholding it demands that the those in charge have enough integrity to refrain from seeking temporary advantages, and that the public demand responsibility should they falter.

Unfettered might is not right. It results in turmoil, chaos, and conflict.

Every time entities that are advantaged prey upon those that are weaker, the structure of our shared norms unravels. If these actions 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 with deepening divides. Authority and resources are held by fewer hands than in recent memory. This invites the powerful to exploit the less fortunate because they act with a sense of untouchable.

The resources of a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals is difficult to fathom. The reach of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors extends over a vast portion of the world. Artificial intelligence is poised to consolidate wealth and power even more. The destructive power of the leading countries is without parallel in human history.

Supported by a compliant faction and a pliant supreme court, the executive office has been made into the most dominant and unchecked agent of government in history.

Combine these factors and you grasp the threat.

An unbroken thread ties previous lawless actions to ongoing threats. These were based on the hubris of absolute power.

You see much the same in the actions of other powers: in military conflicts, in strategic threats, and in the rampant monopolization by industrial titans.

But, raw power does not create right. It makes for instability, upended order, and armed conflict.

History shows that rules and conventions to check the powerful also protect them. Absent these limits, their relentless pursuit for greater influence and riches eventually lead to their downfall – taking down their corporations, nations, or empires. And threaten global conflict.

This blatant contempt for legal order will plague America and the global community – and the very idea of civilization – for the foreseeable future.