Trump did not need the military to support a coup. He didn’t need a single military personnel. In fact, all the General’s told him that they are not helping him.
Neither Trump, nor any Republican, believs that he needed the military. If he did, what was going on January 6th with Trump being very disappointed with Mike Pence ?
He was doing everything through a very illegal and unconstitutional plan without firing a single AR-15.
The plan, as has been stated a million times, and is very clear from the hearings, was that Trump wanted Mike Pence not to certify the legal electors that the states had sent him.
He wanted Pence to use the “alternate” (i.e false) electors sent by the state’s republican party.
Once that happened, the legal atomic bomb that Mike Pence had dropped, was going to cause a legal civil war.
SCOTUS was going to have to get involved and who knows what they would have done. In fact, I am sure that Ginni promised Trump that her husband was completely onboard and he would get the other 2 Trump nominees on board also.
Congress would also have gotten involved and we know that the Republicans were going to side with Trump.
Currently in 2022, the court (made of some judges who are supreme and many who are really not ) has just decided to take on a controversial election-law case. Depending on their decision , the next election will be easy-peasy for the Republicans to steal. It is the independent state legislature theory.
In its most extreme form, the independent state legislature theory was invoked — unsuccessfully — by Trump advocates in an effort to sidestep the legitimate outcome of the 2020 election. In Arizona, for instance, some Trump supporters used the theory in calling for the decertification of the state’s electors. Among those seeking decertification was Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas.