“In 2015 and 2016, when Republicans still had the chance to choose a different nominee, conservative critics leaned heavily on their belief that Trump had disturbing authoritarian tendencies. “Putin supports Donald Trump. The two men are authoritarian kindred spirits,” warned one column in National Review in March 2016. “Trump assures voters that he will use authoritarian power for good, to help those who feel — with good reason — ignored by both parties,” wrote Ben Domenech. “But the American experiment in self-government was the work of a generation that risked all to defeat a tyrannical monarch and establish a government of laws, not men. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people is precisely what the Constitution offers, and what is most threatened by ‘great men’ impatient to impose their will on the nation.” Nothing in Trump’s presidency has quelled these fears. Trump has repeatedly expressed, in word and deed, his belief that federal law-enforcement power must be personally loyal to him. He threatens policy retribution against the owners of news media whose reporting displeases him. He is using state power to enrich himself and his cronies in a way that far surpasses the standard of what used to be considered discrete “scandals,” and instead resembles the kind of oligarchies found in Russia, China, and the Middle East — governments that have not coincidentally won favor in Trump’s Washington.”