U.S. President Donald Trump has warned his political opponents of the possibility that they could eventually be confronted by armed Trump supporters in and out of uniform, telling a right-wing website on Monday that "it would be very bad, very bad" if his backers in the military, police and a motorcycle group were provoked into getting "tough."
The Star
The full quote Trump gave (I will not be linking to the site he presented the quote to, mostly because I don't want them getting our clicks, but if you're desperate to see it, it's linked in the Star article I linked to above):
"So here's the thing—it's so terrible what's happening," Trump said when asked about how the left is fighting hard. "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. Okay? 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. But the left plays it cuter and tougher. Like with all the nonsense that they do in Congress … with all this invest[igations]—that's all they want to do is –you know, they do things that are nasty. Republicans never played this."
It sounds to me like he is preparing the stage to legitimize any use of force or state power to block a succession of power should (when) he lose the 2020 election. Which is, frankly, alarming.