Donald Trump says he is not a dictator. Isn’t he?

Trump has also targeted law firms who have filed lawsuits he opposes, while the Federal Communications Commission, led by a Trump appointee, is investigating every major broadcast network except Fox, which owns the pro-Trump Fox News channel. Trump has personally sued news channels over critical coverage and fired the government’s top labour statistician because she published jobs data that he didn’t like.

He has threatened Democrats with prosecution, and demanded that former president Barack Obama be investigated for treason. Trump has done all this as his family has ostensibly earned millions of dollars from his presidency.

None of these things are typical for a democratic leader. So … is Trump a dictator?

“Yes, of course,” said Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology at Princeton University who spent years researching autocracies including Hungary and Russia. Scheppele said she had been wavering on using the term “dictatorship” until recently, but said: “If I was hesitating before, it’s this mobilization of the national guard and the indication that he plans to overtake resistance by force that now means we’re in it.”