THE NEXT COUP WON'T LOOK LIKE THE LAST ONE

I'm seeing this a lot, but I don't agree with it:

“When a coup attempt goes unpunished, it becomes a training exercise.”

— Spirit of 2021 (@damspahn) January 24, 2021

Yesterday I wrote about the launch video for the gubernatorial campaign of Sarah Huckabee Sanders. As I noted, Sanders described the January 6 Capitol riot as one of the signs that America needs "law and order." (The other signs: the shooting of Congressman Steve Scalise and this summer's anti-racism unrest.)

Much of the right thinks the Capitol riot was a bad thing. I assume the non-QAnon wing of the GOP sees it as an embarrassment for the party, and recognizes what a danger it was to many party members. Some of the rank-and-file crazies think it was a set-up, as do some Republican officials.

In Oregon, the state Republican Party ... falsely claims the entire episode was a “false flag” staged to discredit the GOP and silence Trump’s supporters.

Last week, the state party released a resolution passed by its executive committee that says the supposedly fake operation was meant to undermine Trump and give more power to President Biden, citing websites by John Solomon and the Trump-friendly Epoch Times.

“The violence at the Capitol was a ‘false flag’ operation designed to discredit President Trump, his supporters, and all conservative Republicans; this provided the sham motivation to impeach President Trump in order to advance the Democratic goal of seizing total power,” the resolution says.

Most on the right don't want a repeat of January 6.

That doesn't mean they don't want to steal elections. But if they try to steal another one, most of them want to do without chaos and violence. They'll want to do it through vote suppression, and failing that, through the manipulation of laws so their theft will appear legal.

Donald Trump loves upheaval. He likes to be seen as a guy who walks into a room and starts breaking stuff if he doesn't get his way. That's his brand.

Most elite Republicans would be happy to see the system finagled the way they thought Trump might finagle it when they first embraced him in 2016. They thought it would be "the art of the deal" -- hardball boardroom maneuvering without the appearance of disorder. That's what they'll aim for in the future.