One thing to remember is that coup attempts often are doomed to fail and even comedic the first time around (think: the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, Hugo Chavez’s 1992 attempted coup, etc). 1/

And this time around, we’ve seen countless people in positions of high power - as well as a lot of regular folks - seemingly willing to walk right up to the line on some dangerous, deeply undemocratic (small ‘d’) ideas. 2/

In the end, the system held. But the fact that enough serious people were willing to contemplate, however briefly, subverting the will of the voters should give us a lot of pause. It’s an unsettling picture of where we are as a nation. 3/