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The national and international initiatives – from the effort to overturn the election in the past to current moves and warnings – weaken both domestic and international legal frameworks. But that’s not all.

They threaten the fundamental meaning of civilization itself.

A guiding principle of a functioning society is to prevent the stronger from harming and taking advantage of the weaker. Failing that, we could find ourselves permanently immersed in a brutish war where survival of the strongest prevails.

This principle is central of the nation's founding texts. This is also the core of the postwar international order advocated by the United States, built on collective action, democratic governance, human rights, and the supremacy of law.

But, it is a delicate ideal, easily violated by those who seek to abuse their authority. Preserving it requires that the influential have enough integrity to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that society demand responsibility if they don't.

Unfettered might does not equal right. It results in uncertainty, upheaval, and war.

Every time individuals, companies, or nations that are advantaged prey upon those that are weaker, the fabric of society weakens. If such aggression are not contained, the fabric unravels. Allowing it to persist, the world can descend into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.

We now inhabit a society and world grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are more concentrated than in recent memory. This creates conditions for the elite to leverage their position against the weaker because they act with a sense of untouchable.

The fortunes of a small group of billionaires is staggering. The power of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors spans much of the globe. Artificial intelligence is poised to further concentrate resources and influence to a greater degree. The military might of the major powers is unprecedented in human history.

Enabled by complicit legislators and an accommodating supreme court, the presidency has been transformed into the most dominant and unchecked entity of the state in history.

Combine these factors and you grasp the looming crisis.

A clear connection connects previous lawless actions to ongoing menaces. Both were premised on the arrogance of omnipotence.

There is parallel dynamics in other global contexts: in military conflicts, in strategic threats, and in the global depredation by industrial titans.

Yet, strength without restraint does not establish right. It fosters instability, revolution, and armed conflict.

History shows that rules and conventions to constrain the powerful also shield them. Without such constraints, their relentless pursuit for increased control and resources in time cause their collapse – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And risk international catastrophe.

Such lawlessness will haunt international stability – and indeed civilization – for a long time.