I understand.
Watch for whether they start turning on each other. The final years of the Roman Republic were marked by politicians using the law against each other. In the final run up to his dictatorship, Julius Caesar had to engineer seamless transitions between offices for himself because as soon as he was out of office, he was open to prosecution for offenses a little bit earlier. There were similar instances against others. A good bit earlier, some politician had helped kill extra-judicially the supporters of traitor who had planned to march on Rome and assissinate a number of (senators?). Some years later his political opponents tried unsuccessfully to prosecute him for that extra-judicial killing.
On the one hand, the late Republic was full of greed, crime, vote-buying (literally paying for votes, not pandering) by the ruling classes. So, there was plenty to prosecute. The prosecutions and attempts at prosecution had nothing to do with the rule of law. It was just a political tool to get rid of opponents.
Its one thing for liberal or libertarian bloggers to say an official should be prosecuted for, say, authorizing torture. Its something else entirely when officials start saying. Notice how no officials get prosecuted much? When that changes and you start to see more and more officials calling for the prosecution of other officials, then you know you've got a problem.
Of course, it doesn't have to go that route. It could just slide right into a hard tyranny without it. I'm not saying its a necessary step.
