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The domestic and foreign strategies – including the attempted coup five years ago to recent actions and warnings – undermine not only domestic and international jurisprudence. The implications are broader.

These actions jeopardize the fundamental meaning of a civilized world.

A moral purpose of civilized society is to stop the more powerful from harming and taking advantage of the weaker. Without this, we could find ourselves trapped in a brutish war where survival of the strongest could survive.

This principle is embedded of America’s founding documents. This is also the heart of the postwar international order supported by the US, emphasizing collective action, democratic governance, human rights, and the legal authority.

But, it is a delicate ideal, easily violated by those who would exploit their authority. Upholding it necessitates that the powerful have enough integrity to abstain from seeking temporary advantages, and that the public ensure they answer for their actions should they falter.

Unchecked strength does not make right. It leads to turmoil, chaos, and hostilities.

Each instance people or corporations or countries that are advantaged prey upon those that are weaker, the framework of civilization unravels. If these actions are left unchecked, the system fails. Without intervention, the world can fall into chaos and war. It has happened before.

Our current reality is a society and world with deepening divides. Authority and resources are more concentrated than ever before. This creates conditions for the elite to exploit the disadvantaged because they perceive themselves as above the law.

The resources of certain billionaires is difficult to fathom. The influence of global industrial giants spans numerous countries. Advanced technology is poised to centralize wealth and power further. The military might of the leading countries is without parallel in the annals of time.

Enabled by political allies and an accommodating judicial body, the presidency has been transformed into the most dominant and unchecked instrument of government in history.

Consider this confluence and you see the threat.

A clear connection connects earlier transgressions to present-day provocations. Both were based on the hubris of absolute power.

One observes a similar pattern in the actions of other powers: in territorial invasions, in strategic threats, and in the global depredation by massive conglomerates.

However, raw power does not establish right. It produces uncertainty, upheaval, and war.

Historical evidence demonstrates that frameworks designed to limit the influential also shield them. Absent these limits, their insatiable demands for increased control and resources in time cause their collapse – taking down their corporations, nations, or empires. And threaten world war.

This kind of disregard for rules will plague America and the global community – and the very idea of civilization – for the foreseeable future.