If an American President, on his own authority, suspended the U. S. Constitution — as Barack Obama has pretty much done — and the Congress declined to impeach and remove him from office for this, would the U. S. military be justified in forcibly removing the government in Washington in order to preserve the Constitution? Does American “democracy” have any real meaning, any long-term viability, without the Constitution?

These are complicated questions. Like Obama and Morsy, Hitler was a democratically elected leader — but all these men assumed dictatorial powers after their elections which went beyond anything the people who elected them contemplated. Does there come a point at which a democratically elected leader nullifies his mandate through tyrannical acts?