Constitutional scholars use the "autocratic signaling" when leaders test public tolerance by "just wondering" if dictatorship might be preferable. Trump did exactly that today when he complained about Illinois Governor Pritzker's resistance to his plans for a military takeover of Chicago. He said, "A lot of people are saying maybe we'd like a dictator."

When a president jokes, flirts, or wonders out loud whether Americans might want a dictator — even if he immediately walks it back — he is testing the boundaries of what the public, the press, and other power centers will tolerate. Dictatorships rarely arrive with tanks in the streets; they arrive when the language of democracy is hollowed out from within.

Minutes later, Trump signed an order criminalizing flag-burning with a one-year jai

See Full Page