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WASHINGTON What if you attempted a coup but people were unwilling to wrap their heads around what you had done?

A year after Jan. 6, 2021, that is the peculiar situation in which Donald Trump finds himself. Instead of being carted off in handcuffs for inciting an insurrection against the United States, or even just being banished from federal office for life by the Senate, the former president instead remains the leader of one of the two major political parties and is openly considering another run for the White House in 2024.

Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council analyst in the Trump White House, was among the first to call what Trump tried a coup, just five days afterward, writing in an essay : Ive been studying authoritarian regimes for three decades, and I know the signs of a coup when I see them.

Eleven months later, she is appalled that most Americans still are unable to grasp how close they came to losing their democracy.

A total failure of imagination. This was a coup. It still is. Its ongoing, she said of Trumps continued attempts to delegitimize Democrat Joe Biden s election win and return to power. If we were looking at this overseas, we would say: Absolutely, thats what it was.

Jonathan Weiler, a University of North Carolina political scientist and co-author of Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics, said he can appreciate the desire of many Americans to ignore politics for a while, after four years of Trumps endless, self-created crises. A natural and self-protective need we have to take our foot off the gas sometimes, he said. We can only be revved up for so long.

For their part, Trump allies describe Jan. 6 as a protest that got out of hand, that never had a coherent plan to reverse the election results, and no coordination with Trump or his staff. They ridicule the use of the word coup to describe the horde of Trumps followers who wandered the building taking selfies, arguing that such a group was not remotely capable of bringing down the government.