Opinion | Will Trump Ever Leave the White House?

On March 3, 2016, Bret Baier of Fox News asked Trump what would happen if the military refused to obey his orders to torture suspected terrorists because “they’ve been trained to turn down and refuse illegal orders.” Trump — still eight months before being elected — replied:

“They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse me. Believe me.”

Pressed further by Baier, Trump declared:

I’m a leader. I’m a leader. I’ve always been a leader. I’ve never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they’re going to do it. That’s what leadership is all about.

In the final debate with Hillary Clinton on Oct. 19, 2016, Chris Wallace of Fox News pressed Trump to announce that he would “absolutely accept the result of this election.” Trump’s answer:

I will look at it at the time. I’m not looking at anything now. I’ll look at it at the time. What I’ve seen — what I’ve seen is so bad. First of all, the media is so dishonest and so corrupt, and the pile-on is so amazing.

Trump then claimed that the results could be corrupted because there are “millions of people that are registered to vote that shouldn’t be registered to vote.” Not only that, but his opponent “shouldn’t be allowed to run. It’s crooked — she’s, she’s guilty of a very, very serious crime. She should not be allowed to run.”

Finally, Trump concluded the exchange: “What I’m saying is that I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense. O.K.?”

Or consider what Trump has said while president. 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.

And on Monday, Trump strengthened the case that he is willing to burn the house down, posting a series of tweets quoting Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, from an appearance on Fox News earlier that day.

Here’s what Jeffress said:

I’ve literally spoken to thousands and thousands of evangelical Christians, I have never seen them more angry over any issue than this attempt to illegitimately remove this president from office, overturn the 2016 election and negate the votes of millions of evangelicals in the process. And if the Democrats are successful in removing the president from office, I’m afraid it will cause a Civil War-like fracture in this nation from which this country will never heal.

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?

Extensive evidence suggests that the passion of Trump’s loyalists is, to a considerable extent, rooted in what they perceive as racial and cultural threat. Polls and surveys from Pew, N.P.R. and the Public Religion Research Institute show that 55 percent of whites believe they are discriminated against, that a plurality of whites (46 percent) believes that a majority-minority nation will “weaken American culture” and that once dominant white Christians are no longer a majority.