… On March 12, 2019, a month before publication of the Mueller Report, Trump told Breitbart, the hard right populist news site:
You know, the left plays a tougher game, it’s very funny. I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don’t play it tougher. O.K.? I can tell you, I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump — I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad. …
Now Trump is conducting an all-out assault on the impeachment process, calling it a coup in a pair of tweets posted on Tuesday:
As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the People, their VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!
All of this raises a couple of questions: What drives the depth and intensity of support for Trump? And how far are those supporters willing to go to keep him in the White House? CONT.
Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times