[Hardens Hollow]

He’s acting as if he is, as if there are no other branches of government. I think he is in pre-dictator mode, much like Hitler in 1933.

[Jacquerie]

Classic dictators were granted enormous power for a short time to address specific emergencies that slow moving free republics are incapable of dealing with. Rome famously appointed a couple to fight powerful neighbors. Dictators don't destroy the republic they serve. During the revolutionary war, George Washington and later Thomas Nelson of VA were granted dictatorial power to deal with specific, local threats posed by the British. Since their actions didn't harm republican government, little is known of them today.

OTOH, when corrupt republics are in their final days, a tyrant may emerge. The powers of tyrants have no time limit. Tyrants are outlaws hostile to republican freedom. Tyrants assume, grasp, and otherwise illegally seize powers that don’t belong to them. They either destroy republican institutions outright, or like Obama, they squeeze the neck of institutions like congress that stand in their way. In time, once free institutions are compromised and become docile, subservient rubber stamps to the will of the tyrant.

We technically have a constitution, yet for practical purposes we don't, not because of a dictator, but because congress has unconstitutionally relinquished power which has subsequently swirled into the hands of an appreciative tyrant, Obama.