(Dobbs) If You Don't See Where We're Headed, You're Not Paying Attention.

“Donald Trump pretty much checks all the warning boxes for an autocrat.”

Putting a plan in place to deploy troops to Chicago, which is not the nation’s capital.

Authorizing live weapons in the hands of troops in Washington, which is.

Raiding the homes of your most vocal critics.

Opening active investigations against your opponents for god-only-knows-what.

Imprisoning immigrants in conditions described as inhumane.

Deporting aliens to nations they’ve never seen.

Extorting major corporations, universities, and law firms.

Attacking the nation’s foremost museums.

Weakening the ability of minorities to vote.

Degrading non-traditional sexual orientations.

Accusing adversaries of treason.

Purging officials who contradict the leader.

Dominating members of the legislature.

Discrediting members of the judiciary.

Disemboweling members of the media.

Disassembling checks and balances.

Disregarding the foundational documents of the nation.

Declaring that if your party gerrymanders enough new seats, “the crooked game of politics is over.”

That’s all just in the past week, some of it just in the past day.

And for good measure, aligning, as if nothing has happened, with authoritarian mass murderers.

As Scientific American put it, “Donald Trump pretty much checks all the warning boxes for an autocrat.” Which is a synonym for tyrant, despot, absolute ruler.

If you don’t see us on a slow but steady path to dictatorship, you’re not paying attention.

Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 39-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.

You can learn more at GregDobbs.net