[chillacy]

It's good that it hasn't happened in the US yet, the US luckily has pretty strong institutions it turns out.

But just looking at number of times a democratically elected senate has been dissolved throughout history (Rome, Japan (rise of imperial japan), Germany (third reich), Iran (iranian revolution), etc), there has indeed been a lot of "masquerading as a democracy" going on.

Separation of powers makes it harder to raise a dictator but in some cases it's just another piece of legislation away. Hence, I think Americans ought not to take our democracy for granted.