What you’ve just detailed here is exactly why there was an elevated level of concern during a particular 4-year window, and a general sigh of relief once that time had passed.
I think you are absolutely on the money here, but I also think we didn't benefit and he benefitted greatly from the fact that people jumped to comparing him with one of the worst dictators of all time. Did his personality dispose him to possibly becoming something like that? Had his coup succeeded I'm sure we'd be closer. But he was compared to a mass murderer (conveniently in living memory, no comparisons to Timur or other autocrats) before he'd done anything but say tactless things. That enabled him to paint all criticisms of him as absurd (even though he would have anyway).