Do you honestly think that's in DJT's capabilities?

Sure. Just like you said a few posts later:

He certainly engages in a bunch of shocking disregard of past norms, because he's a guy that doesn't like to believe anyone who tells him when the stove is hot. He wants to touch the stove anyway.

Right. He's fully capable of asking the military to take over.

But he hasn't really done anything remotely like what people are talking about here. He's not calling out troops to Capitol Hill to threaten John Thune (or Susan Collins) over the filibuster, or declaring a national emergency so he can seize the Fed and set interest rates himself, or ordering the treasury to move the $1.776 billion fund into an off-shore account and damn the courts. He's still always trying to find a fig leaf, a veneer, a wisp of a plausible excuse so that he always has a hidey-hole to retreat to, and so he can try to get someone else to go along with it.

He called out his own private army to Capitol Hill. Invited them to come, whipped them into a frenzy, sent them to the Hill. Then he pardoned them all. Every last one of them. He protected them from the consequences of their illegal actions so that he could do it again. And, of course he's getting others to do his bidding while staying at a respectable distance from the action. His private "army" is only one small step removed from his formal command of the military.

Trump doesn't control the state government of, say, Pennsylvania.

Nor any other state. But he doesn't need to to execute a military coup. He can let the election play out, with all of the expected pressure and influence and voter suppression he can muster. All to get the most favorable politicians in place that he can. But the people running for President and VP had better have some darn good security details and plans. Because they are the ones with a target on their back. All he has to do is whip up his private "army" of pardoned J6'ers to go after those 4 folks and get them out of the way after the Nov 2028 election. If (a big IF) he can get a GOP majority in the House in 2028, he can get a lacky like Mike Johnson to agree that he should be the President rather than follow the line of succession as spelled out in that amendment I'm too lazy to look up.(14th??)

We get the usual question: Who would stop him? The courts? That will take months or years. And then how do you enforce a ruling against Trump? The USSC is particularly lacking in any enforcement mechanism for their rulings.

Let me close by saying that I'm definitely playing Devil's advocate here. I'm spinning a bit of a conspiracy theory. But I don't think this is an implausible theory. I think it's all within Trump's capabilities. And I think that there are a goodly number of pols who would let Trump do what he wants. Lord knows there are plenty of them running around Congress and state houses already. They just want their own little piece of the pie - whether that be power or money. And they all think they will be exempt from Trump's "use 'em and dump 'em" policy, even though none of them actually are exempt. This is a bit of a war game, if you will.

The question is not whether Trump is capable of doing some surprising things, it's what will we do to counter things that are plausible but not probable. And I certainly hope those in opposition to Trump and in positions of power are gaming out some "what if's" that include an attempted military coup. Because there is no guarantee that Trump won't, and a bit of evidence that he's been testing the waters in this term.

--Peter