America has dodged a bullet.

A real live round, not a dud or a dummy. We can still feel the sting, and smell the stink, of that projectile as it whizzed past us and barely missed its target. But next time we might not be so fortunate.

Let’s be clear and candid about this: In effect, President Trump tried, and failed, to stage a coup. He tried, and failed, to reverse the result of an election his own government agency called “the most secure in America history.” And then he fired the head of the office that dared to tell him the truth.

As Rep. James Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the House, told CNN, “They’re really trying to invite insurrection.” And as The Washington Post put it in an editorial: “Mr. Trump has progressed from lying about the result to adopting the tactics of a tinpot authoritarian, trying to overturn a free and fair election by pressuring and corrupting voting officials.”

Trump’s coup attempt failed because his case was ridiculously weak, and the results were not particularly close; he lost the popular vote by 7 million ballots, and only got 232 Electoral College votes to Joe Biden’s 306. In addition, he failed because a small cadre of dedicated public servants, many of them Republicans, rejected his propaganda and resisted his pleas.

A good example was Justice Brian Hagedorn of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, a staunch conservative who once served as legal counsel to the state’s former Republican governor Scott Walker. The justice threw out one of Trump’s legal challenges — Joe Biden won the state by more than 20,000 votes — by saying, “The relief being sought by the petitioners is the most dramatic invocation of judicial power I have ever seen. Judicial acquiescence to such entreaties built on so flimsy a foundation would do indelible damage to every future election. … This is a dangerous path we are being asked to tread.”

After the election, Trump asked for recounts in key states. Fair enough — that was his right, even though Biden actually gained 87 votes after the new canvass in Wisconsin. Then the president challenged the results through court suits. OK — that was also his right, even though judges like Hagedorn were increasingly hostile to his increasingly frivolous petitions.

But then Trump crossed a line: He went from legitimate challenges to illegitimate coercion; from pursuing legal methods to encouraging extra-legal measures. Twice, he called the speaker of the Pennsylvania legislature, exhorting him to ignore the will of his state’s voters. He summoned the legislative leaders from Michigan to the White House to send the same message. And he has publicly berated Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and other Republican state officials for not canceling an election he lost by about 12,000 votes.

“Your governor could stop it very easily if he knew what the hell he was doing,” Trump said at a rally in the Georgia city of Valdosta. “So far, we haven’t been able to find the people in Georgia willing to do the right thing.”

If you think words like “coup” or “insurrection” are too strong, look at what happened to Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, who found her house surrounded by protestors, some brandishing weapons. Or the election workers in Georgia who have received death threats.

“Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed,” warned Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who runs Georgia’s election system. “It has all. Gone. Too. Far. It has to stop.”

But it hasn’t stopped. Trump continues to insist, against all evidence, that the election was “rigged” against him, and while no one has gotten personally assaulted — yet — for opposing him, the violence he’s doing to the political system is already severe. He’s already created a roadmap, a precedent, for a future coup that might well have a better chance of succeeding.

Imagine an election that is a lot closer. Imagine a legal team that is a lot smarter. Imagine state officials and federal judges who are a lot less willing to defy a deranged president.

“Next time could be worse,” Edward B. Foley, a constitutional law expert at Ohio State, warned in The Washington Post. “But what makes this year’s narrow escape so unnerving is how far the plot to overthrow the election got with so little factual ammunition.”

The coup failed; the insurrection sputtered; the system survived. But Trump’s lasting legacy is not that he made America great again. Exactly the opposite. It’s that he’s doing “indelible damage” to our democracy.

Steven Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. He can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com.