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His national and international initiatives – including the attempted coup five years ago to current actions and threats – undermine both national and global jurisprudence. However, the issue goes deeper.

They endanger the core idea of a civilized world.

The moral purpose of any advanced culture is to forestall the more powerful from attacking and exploiting the less powerful. Otherwise, we could find ourselves permanently immersed in a state of nature where might makes right could survive.

This concept lies at the center of the nation's founding texts. It is equally the core of the global system established after WWII championed by the US, emphasizing multilateralism, popular sovereignty, fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.

But, it is a fragile ideal, often broken by those who would exploit their power. Preserving it demands that the influential have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that the public hold them accountable when they fail.

Absolute power does not make right. It makes for uncertainty, disruption, and hostilities.

Every time individuals, companies, or nations that are wealthier and stronger prey upon those that are weaker, the structure of civilization weakens. If these actions are left unchecked, the system fails. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge into instability and violence. History provides ample precedent.

Today, we live in a society and world with deepening divides. Influence and wealth are more concentrated than in recent memory. This creates conditions for the privileged to leverage their position against the less fortunate because they act with a sense of untouchable.

The wealth of a small group of billionaires is difficult to fathom. The influence of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors spans a vast portion of the world. Advanced technology is could consolidate wealth and power to a greater degree. The military might of the leading countries is unmatched in the annals of time.

Empowered by political allies and a sympathetic high court, the highest office has been transformed into the supreme and answerable-to-none agent of state power in history.

Consider this confluence and you see the threat.

A direct line ties previous breaches of norms to ongoing menaces. These were based on the overconfidence of invincibility.

One observes much the same in other global contexts: in wars of aggression, in expansive ambitions, and in the global depredation by powerful corporate entities.

But, unfettered might does not make right. It produces uncertainty, revolution, and armed conflict.

Historical evidence demonstrates that laws and norms to constrain the influential also safeguard them. If these guardrails are removed, their relentless pursuit for more power and wealth ultimately lead to their downfall – along with their enterprises, countries, or domains. And risk world war.

This kind of contempt for legal order will haunt the nation and the world – and the very idea of civilized conduct – for the foreseeable future.