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His internal and external strategies – including the challenge to the democratic process in the past to recent incursions and statements – erode not only national and global legal frameworks. But that’s not all.

They endanger the fundamental meaning of what we mean by.

The moral purpose of a functioning society is to stop the dominant from harming and taking advantage of the weaker. Without this, we would be trapped in a state of nature where might makes right could survive.

This principle is central of America’s founding documents. It is equally the foundation of the postwar international order advocated by the America, which stresses international cooperation, democracy, individual liberties, and the supremacy of law.

But, it is a delicate ideal, frequently ignored by those who seek to abuse their power. Maintaining it requires that the powerful have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us demand responsibility if they don't.

Unchecked strength does not make right. It results in instability, disruption, and war.

Each instance individuals, companies, or nations that are richer and more powerful attack and exploit those that are weaker, the structure of society weakens. If such aggression are left unchecked, the system fails. Allowing it to persist, the world can descend into chaos and war. It has happened before.

We now inhabit a global community marked by extreme inequality. Influence and wealth are more concentrated than in modern history. This encourages the elite to take advantage of the disadvantaged because they feel untouchable.

The resources of a small group of billionaires is staggering. The power of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace spans a vast portion of the world. Advanced technology is poised to centralize economic and political clout to a greater degree. The offensive capability of the world's largest nations is without parallel in the annals of time.

Enabled by a compliant faction and a pliant supreme court, the highest office has been transformed into the most powerful and unaccountable entity of state power in recent memory.

Combine these factors and you grasp the looming crisis.

A direct line ties past lawless actions to current menaces. Each were founded upon the hubris of absolute power.

You see much the same in international affairs: in territorial invasions, in coercive diplomacy, and in the rampant monopolization by massive conglomerates.

But, raw power does not make right. It fosters instability, upheaval, and armed conflict.

History shows that laws and norms to constrain the powerful also safeguard them. Absent these limits, their endless appetite for greater influence and riches eventually lead to their downfall – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And threaten international catastrophe.

Such lawlessness will haunt the nation and the world – and indeed civilized conduct – for the foreseeable future.