President Trump generated another controversy this morning when he said of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, “he’s the head of a country, and I mean he is the strong head. Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks, and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”

Even if we’re charitable and take Trump at his word that he was merely joking rather than literally desiring being treated as a dictator, the casualness with which he speaks of the North Korean regime is still unsettling. It comes after a week of Trump offering public admiration of the strength and toughness and popularity of Kim, and is part of a decadeslong pattern of Trump associating authoritarianism with strength and freedom with weakness.