“The law itself—the principle of law, the authority of law—is sorely tested and feels as if it is being broken,” Lance Morrow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center writes. That phrase “being broken” is the one that strikes a nerve. The authority of law, the rule of law, the institutions of law are not broken—at least not yet—but in the shadow of all that political violence, they clearly are not whole or healthy. Just as erosion, falling rains, rising floodwaters and years of neglect can wear away at a once-sturdy bridge, we are watching a confluence of destructive forces wear away at the authority of law, the rule of law, the institutions of law.