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Donald Trump has always admired tyrants a lot more than democratically elected leaders who are restrained by pesky obstacles like parliaments and laws, and it is quite clear that he would rather be a Führer, Duce, or Generalissimo (especially because he thinks of himself as a “war hero”) than a mere president. Therefore, it must be maddening for him that most Americans refuse to recognize him as a dictator, no matter how hard he tries. For the past few days, Trump worked overtime to convince them that he is, indeed, a president-in-name-only (PINO™).

Let’s take a look at just some of the things he said and did.

On Sunday alone, he said that the licenses of NBC and ABC should be revoked because they are being mean to him, threatened to withhold critical infrastructure funding for a state whose governor criticized him, and suggested he may sic his Department of “Justice” (DO“J”) on a former governor who, you guessed it, panned him on TV.

That comes on top of armed troops patrolling the street of the nation’s capital (with military takeovers of other “blue” cities planned), the raid of the home of his former national security adviser who possibly criticized Trump (you may detect a theme here), and his vow to take “harsh measures” if Colorado did not free an election-denying Trump supporter convicted for her role in trying to breach voting equipment.

Speaking of elections, after demanding that Texas rig the 2026 midterm election to preserve the narrow GOP majority in the House of Representatives, he also announced that he would end mail-in voting, which is not something a president can do.

A dictator could, though.

And that is clearly what Trump sees himself as and acts like, which is why it is so befuddling that so many Americans fail to see what is happening in their country.

All of this begs the question of what more he has to do until they get the message.

The most fascinating aspect of this is that Trump has never made a secret of his ambition.

Before the election, he said that he would be a dictator on the first day of his second term. At the time, he vowed to limit his dictatorial impulse to only that day, but he seemingly got a taste of ruling without any guardrails.

What’s troubling is that a huge swath of Americans either can’t see what is happening, don’t care, or like it.

MAGA Republicans have certainly stopped pretending to care about government overreach now that they are doing the overreaching.

Now they just shrug while the military is patrolling American streets, the government is seizing the means of production, and DO“J” is weaponized against any of the president’s adversaries.

They better hope that Trump succeeds in turning the US into an authoritarian state with one-party rule. Because, if he fails, the pendulum is going to swing back very hard, and they might feel very differently about executive powers once President AOC is at the helm.

And that is probably such a frightening prospect for them that explains why they are going along with all of this (apart from their naked desire for unbridled power): Because, once you embark on the path toward authoritarianism, you better get there or you may end up as (metaphorical) roadkill.