Gov. Polis has yet again extended the state’s disaster emergency order that gives him the authority to continue governing as the little dictator he’s become.

Tuesday’s extension was the fifth since early March, which Polis has used to pass more than 100 executive orders, spend millions in emergency federal funds without  the legislature, and rewrite the state’s Constitution.

It’s all the Colorado Supreme Court can do to keep up with Polis’s antics and reverse some challenged actions including the governor’s order to allow collection of petition signatures for proposed ballot measures through email.

Democrat state lawmakers are completely unwilling to keep Polis’s unprecedented use of executive powers in check — power Polis said he only needed until we flattened the curve to ensure our hospitals and health care system were not overwhelmed by COVID-19.

When Polis declared a week ago he would keep Colorado in a suspended state of regulatory mandates that must be met before we can get our lives and businesses back on track, the timeline was barely noticed.

We will remain under Polis’s authoritarian rule until there is a cure or vaccine for COVID-19, Polis declared.

Testing nationwide has rapidly increased and the reported number of coronavirus cases is climbing to three million.

The public is getting all panicky again as the media and some politicians peddle the growing number of cases while downplaying the declining number of deaths.

Here’s how that death rate is looking nationwide, and in Colorado.

So Polis has shuttered the bars, again, while the specter of a mask mandate now looms.

That’s a conversation that should never have been politicized, but in all the upheaval that followed the pandemic, it tragically has.

Polis and others would do well to drop the mask shaming, scare tactics, and cheesy trend-setting, and instead educate the public on the benefits and limitations of wearing masks to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Just because Polis can play the part of dictator, does not mean Coloradans will automatically just do as he says.

Colorado taxpayers have poured hundreds of millions into public health education. Now would be a good time to try and make that work.

Enough with the memes, governor. Use your words to inform.