“I am not a crook,” President Nixon said in 1973.

“I’m not a dictator,” President Trump insisted on Monday.

And with that, another famously false presidential proclamation entered the annals of memorable statements no president should ever feel compelled to make.

It took months more for Nixon’s crimes to force him to resign in 1974 ahead of his all-but-certain removal by Congress. But a half-century later, Trump is unabashedly showing every day that he really does aspire to be a dictator. Unlike Nixon, he doesn’t have to fear a supposedly coequal Congress: It’s run by slavish fellow Republicans who’ve forfeited their constitutional powers over spending, tariffs, appointments and more. Lower courts have checked Trump’s lawlessness, but a too-deferrential Supreme Court gets

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