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The national and international initiatives – from the challenge to the democratic process previously to current moves and warnings – erode not only national and global jurisprudence. But that’s not all.

These actions threaten the very concept of a civilized world.

The ethical foundation of a functioning society is to stop the dominant from preying upon and using the vulnerable. Otherwise, we would be locked in a state of nature where only the fittest could survive.

This principle lies at the center of the Declaration and Constitution. This is also the heart of the global system established after WWII advocated by the United States, which stresses multilateralism, popular sovereignty, human rights, and the supremacy of law.

However, it is a vulnerable ideal, easily violated by those who would exploit their power. Preserving it requires that the those in charge have enough integrity to abstain from seeking immediate gains, and that the public demand responsibility when they fail.

Absolute power is not right. It results in uncertainty, upheaval, and conflict.

Every time entities that are advantaged attack and exploit those that are weaker, the structure of society weakens. If such aggression are not contained, the system fails. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge into instability and violence. It has happened before.

Today, we live in a society and world grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are more concentrated than in recent memory. This encourages the privileged to leverage their position against the less fortunate because they feel omnipotent.

The resources of a handful of tycoons is staggering. The power of global industrial giants extends over a vast portion of the world. Advanced technology is could centralize wealth and power to a greater degree. The military might of the world's largest nations is unprecedented in the annals of time.

Supported by political allies and an accommodating high court, the presidency has been transformed into the supreme and answerable-to-none agent of the state in history.

Combine these factors and you see the threat.

A clear connection links earlier breaches of norms to present-day threats. Both were premised on the hubris of invincibility.

One observes parallel dynamics in international affairs: in wars of aggression, in coercive diplomacy, and in the global depredation by powerful corporate entities.

Yet, unfettered might does not make right. It produces instability, revolution, and war.

History shows that frameworks designed to limit the powerful also protect them. Absent these limits, their insatiable demands for greater influence and riches eventually cause their collapse – taking down their corporations, nations, or empires. And risk world war.

This blatant contempt for legal order will plague international stability – and indeed a rules-based order – for the foreseeable future.