Veteran New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall questioned the likelihood that President Trump would be willing to leave the White House should impeachment proceedings lead to his removal or if he loses his bid for reelection in 2020.
“Since 2015, we have been worrying about how much danger Donald Trump posed to democracy,” Edsall begins ominously. “Now, with the impeachment inquiry moving forward, a new question is rapidly gaining relevance: How and when will President Trump leave the White House?”
Edsall, 78, writes a weekly opinion column for the New York Times and previously reported on national politics for the Washington Post for 25 years. The recipient of many awards in journalism Edsall has also authored several books on political analysis including Building Red America: The New Conservative Coalition and the Drive For Permanent Power in 2006.
A frequent critic of Trump and his supporters, Edsall has penned several incendiary columns about the current administration including, “The Trump Voters Whose ‘Need for Chaos’ Obliterates Everything Else” and “Trump Needs His Base to Burn With Anger.”
In the most recent column, titled, “Will Trump Ever Leave the White House?” Edsall stirs panic about Trump’s support for advocates rights established in the Second Amendment. In the column, Edsall extensively quoted David Leege, a professor emeritus of political science at Notre Dame University. “We should not assume that either a 2020 election defeat or impeachment/conviction will remove Trump from the White House,” Leege said to Edsall. “Both before Trump was elected in 2016 and during his term, he has made frequent references to ‘my 2nd Amendment friends’ and increasingly the ‘patriots’ who constitute the military.”
“The country is armed to the hilt,” Leege also quoted as saying in the column. “As president, Trump has resisted any effort to curb citizen access to guns and ammo. He puts on a modest show of concern when a particularly bad gun massacre occurs but, in the end, he sees armed citizens as a significant personal asset.” He went on to suggest that Trump could have the support of the military should he choose to pursue a coup and this could “embroil us in a major war.”
Edsall goes on to quote Trump — both before and after his election in 2016 — in instances where he perceived the president to be interested in extra-legal pursuits in order to maintain his position. “All of this raises a couple of questions,” Edsall says. “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?”
Edsall then goes on to suggest that the president’s supporters might back a coup or other counter-Constitutional efforts in the interest of protecting their cultural identity. “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.”
Continuing with information from several sources and studies, Edsall explores the depths at which issues of race bear on the voting choice of both conservatives and liberals going into the 2020 election. His conclusion: “From the perspective of Trump’s most ardent supporters, the issue of race is crucial.”
