Except that Franco wasn't an idiot. Trump is an idiot, and so his coup failed utterly. Someone with strategic skill and a grip on reality would have handled this (let's say...) rather differently.

Which is - luckily - incidental. The problem remains that the US is institutionally racist, and there's a mostly Southern base of angry white religious kooks and cultists who can be weaponised for profit and for political ends.

And given the former - and some of the latter - there are plenty of media outlets willing to pander to them and push them further and further into cultish delusion.

The media owners and their financial backers are the real enemies of democracy and of America. And they will be unaffected by this, because everyone is too busy focussing on the costume drama, and the pantomime villain who is fronting it.

But they are the guilty parties. And they are the ones promoting sedition and violence and hoping to end democracy. Trump is just their sockpuppet, and entirely expendable.