From deploying the national guard to targeting news channels and schools, the US president’s actions are anything from typical of a democratic leader

Speaking in the Oval Office this week, Donald Trump had something he wanted to clarify.

“I’m not a dictator. I don’t like a dictator,” the president said.

Yet his comments came weeks after he deployed armed soldiers and Humvee-style military vehicles to patrol the streets of Washington, claiming, despite all available evidence, that the use of the national guard was necessary to control crime.

The remarks followed Trump withholding, or threatening to withhold, billions of dollars from universities, and after the increasingly politicized FBI raid on the home of John Bolton, a prominent critic of Trump.