It's literally a conspiracy theory, the question at hand is whether there really is a conspiracy.

My point is not that they're wrong and Trump won't successfully end democracy (I think the odds are low but non-zero), my point is that the strategy blew up in the DNC's faces and should have been identified as a terrible plan from the start.

Being a Cassandra is not a winning playbook. Being able to say "I told you so" is small comfort, and that's the package they chose when they decided to make themselves look crazy to the electorate. If they believed democracy to be in danger the correct move was to nominate an electable candidate last year, not wait until Biden turned out to be unelectable and then start screaming about the end of democracy.

It's not, but, you have to ask a question - if democrats believe this, and this is the correct messaging, why did they do practically nothing to prevent things like this from becoming a reality? Or even propose a plan going forward as to how to prevent this again? Nothing came of Jan 6, nothing came of any of this, no matter who won, and it was very obvious that the plan was just "well as long as we're in power we won't slide into authoritarianism," but even if it wasn't Trump, eventually someone else is going to come along and beat them and begin wherever Trump left off.

It's not very good messaging at its core. You can't say something is an existential crisis, and then spend 4 years doing absolutely nothing about that crisis other than to say "vote for me again so that won't happen this time."