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The internal and external policies – ranging from the effort to overturn the election in the past to current actions and threats – undermine both national and global law. The implications are broader.

They endanger the core idea of what we mean by.

A ethical foundation of civilized society is to stop the stronger from attacking and exploiting the vulnerable. Without this, we risk being trapped in a brutish war where survival of the strongest prevails.

This concept is embedded of the nation's founding texts. It’s also the heart of the global system established after WWII championed by the America, which stresses collective action, democratic governance, individual liberties, and the supremacy of law.

But, it is a delicate ideal, easily violated by those who would exploit their power. Preserving it demands that the powerful have enough integrity to refrain from seeking temporary advantages, and that society hold them accountable when they fail.

Unchecked strength does not equal right. It results in uncertainty, upheaval, and conflict.

Every time individuals, companies, or nations that are richer and more powerful target and use those that are weaker, the framework of our shared norms weakens. If these actions are allowed to continue, the system fails. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge into disorder and conflict. We have seen this pattern previously.

Our current reality is a international landscape grown vastly more unequal. Influence and wealth are increasingly centralized than in recent memory. This invites the powerful to take advantage of the disadvantaged because they act with a sense of above the law.

The fortunes of a small group of tycoons is difficult to fathom. The influence of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors spans much of the globe. Artificial intelligence is likely to centralize economic and political clout to a greater degree. The military might of the world's largest nations is unmatched in recorded history.

Supported by a compliant faction and a sympathetic supreme court, the highest office has been made into the supreme and answerable-to-none entity of the state in the modern era.

Put it all together and you perceive the looming crisis.

An unbroken thread connects past lawless actions to ongoing provocations. These were founded upon the hubris of omnipotence.

One observes much the same in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in coercive diplomacy, and in the rampant monopolization by powerful corporate entities.

But, unfettered might does not establish right. It makes for uncertainty, revolution, and armed conflict.

The lessons of the past reveal that laws and norms to constrain the influential also safeguard them. Absent these limits, their endless appetite for greater influence and riches eventually lead to their downfall – and with them their enterprises, countries, or domains. And pave the way for global conflict.

This blatant disregard for rules will cast a long shadow over America and the global community – and indeed civilization – for the foreseeable future.