Trump’s coup attempt collapsed from magical thinking and incoherence

Evidence

This was America’s first televised coup attempt—a counter-countercultural Lollapalooza of political delusion. The January 6 planners, in the grip of their own magical thinking, believed a ragtag riot and shoddy legal schemes could keep Trump in the White House. Even archconservative Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell warned that the plan’s success would mean “our democracy would enter a death spiral.” But like Theranos and the Fyre Festival, the entire scheme collapsed under its own incoherence, driven by unquestioning belief and a total lack of perspicacity. The January 6 effort embodied the chutzpah of the Fyre Festival marketing executive who infamously declared: “Let’s just do it and be legends, man.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 619

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the debt-servitude-shamanism theme from earlier in the book (Chapter 1 on shamans) and the broader argument that modernity’s disenchantment created a vacuum filled by magical thinking.
• SEED: Could spin an essay on January 6 as the consumer-spectacle endpoint of the death of the sellout — where political action is performed for an audience rather than aimed at outcomes.