A series of ads aimed at Latino voters launched by a Democratic super PAC is creating a stir by comparing President Donald Trump with dictators Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro and Augusto Pinochet. It’s an exaggeration, but it raises some valid issues.

The Spanish-language ads, launched by the Priorities USA super PAC, feature selfie-style videos by Venezuelan- and Cuban-born Floridians and circulate on Facebook, Twitter and Google.

The ads start with the message, “What is a caudillo? An authoritarian, a demagogue, a dictator.” They show images of Chávez and Castro giving incendiary speeches, insulting and humiliating their political opponents, attacking the media and suggesting that they will stay in office beyond their constitutional terms.

They are followed up by recent videos in which Trump pretty much says the same things. One of them shows Trump saying at a rally last year, only half-jokingly, that, “Under the normal rules, I’ll be out in 2024, so we may have to go to an extra term.”

Equating Trump with Castro, Chávez or Pinochet is unfair. Trump does not wear a military uniform, has not shut down the opposition-controlled House of Representatives or silenced independent newspapers and television networks. And comedians — who are usually the first to go in dictatorial regimes — are thriving under Trump’s rule.

But a recent story in Foreign Policy magazine, “Trump is failing his dictatorship test,” cites several troubling signs of Trump’s lack of respect for democracy. The article, by Harvard professor Stephen M. Walt, argues that Trump is heading a silent, slow-motion transformation of the United States into an autocracy.

The following are among the symptoms.

1. Systematic efforts to intimidate the media. Trump has claimed since the beginning of his presidency that the mainstream media are the “enemies of the people” and has steadily stepped up his efforts to degrade and intimidate the press. That’s one of the first things that Castro, Chávez and Pinochet did upon taking office.

2. Attacking the opposition. Trump has made it a habit of constantly insulting and demonizing his political opponents.

Last week, Trump told followers in Arizona that Democratic presidential hopeful Tom Steyer is an “idiot” and a “jerk.” In his rallies, Trump often smiles approvingly when the crowds chant “Lock her up,” referring to Hillary Clinton or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, even though neither has been convicted of a crime.

Trump gives his political rivals nicknames (“mini-Mike,” “Sleepy Joe,” “Pocahontas,” etc.), often making fun of their physical appearance. Trump also often portrays his domestic political rivals as unpatriotic and threats to national security. All of this is vintage Castro and Chávez.

3. Fearmongering. Trump started his 2016 presidential campaign claiming — falsely — that there is an invasion of illegal aliens and that most Mexican undocumented immigrants are “criminals” and “rapists.”

In fact, illegal immigration has dropped substantially over the past 10 years, and crime rates among undocumented immigrants are below those among Native Americans. But, like most dictators, Trump needs to create the illusion of a foreign threat to energize his base.

4. Politicizing the civil service and the armed forces. Trump recently fired top officials for testifying under oath that he used U.S. foreign military aid to extort Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. Demanding unconditional loyalty from public servants is standard practice by dictators.

5. Disrupting the justice system. Trump’s public statements about ongoing judicial matters have become so pervasive that even his ultra-loyalist Attorney General Bill Barr told ABC News recently that Trump’s tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job.”

Walt’s Foreign Policy article concludes that, “The key point to remember is that healthy democracies don’t sicken and die overnight; they collapse gradually, from a thousand tiny cuts, each of which seems inconsequential at the time.”

That’s precisely what’s happening in 21st century autocracies.

Contrary to what the Democratic super PACs’ ads claim, there is little danger that Trump will become a Castro, a Chávez or a Pinochet. But no one can seriously rule out that, if reelected, Trump won’t become a modern-day autocrat, like Russia’s Vladimir Putin or Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

That’s the real danger.