WASHINGTON If Donald Trump was willing to have Americans gassed and beaten so he could stage a photo opportunity, what will he be willing to do to retain the presidency come election time?

Authoritarianism experts who worried about Trumps tendencies during his campaign and his first years in office are now sounding fresh alarms following the clearing of a park adjacent to the White House on Monday using gas, flash-bang grenades, pepper pellets and other aggressive tactics all so he could stand in front of a church he does not attend and be photographed holding a Bible.

It was everything that an autocrat is, said Gail Helt, who watched for signs of democratic decay in Asian countries during her dozen years as a CIA analyst. Trying to show off the reins of power. That image of him holding the Bible. I dont know what that was, but it was disturbing.

Neither the White House nor the Trump campaign responded to HuffPost queries regarding Trumps authoritarian tendencies and whether they might worsen the closer we get to an Election Day that may force him from office.

In recent months, Trump has begun aggressively attacking mail voting, a process that is standard in some states now and which many others are expanding because of concerns that in-person voting could spread the coronavirus. Trump has repeatedly claimed that expanding voting by mail will let Democrats cheat, even though he, his press secretary and a top adviser have all voted by mail in recent elections.

MAIL-IN VOTING WILL LEAD TO MASSIVE FRAUD AND ABUSE, he claimed in a statement he posted to Twitter last week.

Trump critics, both Democrats and Republicans , believe that he is laying the groundwork to challenge the election results should he lose and that he could try to remain in office by invoking emergency powers.

Trump has shown at best a hazy grasp of his actual powers during his presidency and instead has made broad statements about his authority under the Constitution. I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president, he told supporters last summer.

He does not appear to have any authority to undo an election loss, but his critics warn that the outcome of such assertions on his part could largely be determined by his Cabinet members and Republicans in Congress. And that has Republicans who oppose him worried.

The question is not what Trump is willing to do; its what the people around him are willing to enable him to do. We already know what Trump is capable of, said Tom Nichols, a Naval War College professor and prominent Trump critic.

Trump is a thug surrounded by weak men and women desperate to be near power. Trump has no sense of right and wrong and will do anything, said Stuart Stevens, a GOP consultant who worked on the campaigns of George W. Bush and Mitt Romney. The burden is on the Republican Party . In our system, parties should serve a circuit breaker role. Republicans have proven that most will not, and it creates a very dangerous situation.