After regularly testing the guardrails of American democracy in his second term, President Donald Trump is now busting through them — at a breakneck pace.

The Justice Department on Thursday secured an indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, just days after Trump urged it to prosecute him and forced out the prosecutor who resisted charging the president’s political foes.

The situation epitomizes how, over the last few weeks, we’ve seen an even more radical version of Trump’s already brazen effort to transform the federal government and centralize power with himself.

The president has taken rapid and drastic steps to remove any obstacles within the government, to enforce loyalty, to punish his enemies and to quell the possibility of public dissent that might arise from his moves.