Former DHS deputy chief of staff Miles Taylor with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office c 2018
On Friday, a leaker from President Donald Trump’s first term laid out the details for the final phase of MAGA’s “dystopian” power grab. According to Miles Taylor — who served as deputy chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security duringTrump’s first administration, when he famously revealed White House secrets — the president has spent the past two years attempting to take total control of the government, and if the midterm results leave him room, he’s going to finish the job.
“In January,” writes Taylor, “I posted a scorecard of the major warnings I’d made about a second Trump term. Ninety percent had already come true.” Taylor’s predictions were based on his experience in the Trump administration as well as interviews with other officials and Republicans. Now, he warns, if the GOP retains control of Congress, Trump will move to consolidate his power once and for all.
First, writes Taylor, “Trump will contest the results he doesn’t like. It’s already underway. His Justice Department has launched legal actions in states with competitive races and appears to have more on the way.” As Taylor notes, in recent weeks, the DOJ has issued grand jury subpoenas to California and Washington election officials in an effort to cancel 20,000 mail ballots from voters it calls noncitizens, a request a judge blocked.
“This could get much uglier,” warns Taylor, “with the FBI sent to seize ballots, chaos in the streets, and the use of emergency powers and legislative maneuvers to suppress the political opposition.” If he manages to muddle the election enough, Trump will keep his grip on the legislative branch.From there, he will ramp up his attempts to prosecute and jail critics. There have already been many such cases, notes Taylor, and next will be “governors, members of Congress, donors, organizers, protesters, and more.”
At the same time, Trump will “flout the courts. Last year, Trump menacingly warned reporters that he has a way to evade judicial scrutiny: by taking over. Specifically, as I’ve warned about for years, he’s fantasized about invoking the Insurrection Act and taking us close to martial law; if that happens, in his words, there will be ‘no more court cases, there is no more anything.’”
This will be accompanied by the permanent deployment of troops in the streets. The Supreme Court has already blocked early stages of this effort, but according to Taylor, should Trump eliminate the final constitutional check on his power, “by the summer of 2027, I expect soldiers policing major American cities.”
To ensure his control goes unchallenged, Taylor predicts that Trump will then “rewrite the rules of who gets to vote. The House has already passed the SAVE Act, which would end online and mail registration for millions. Though it stalled in the Senate, Trump will manage to secure its passage if power doesn’t change hands in Congress. The Supreme Court has already let DHS hand states an expanded citizenship database to scrub their voter rolls, and his blocked mail-ballot orders become law the moment a compliant Congress passes them. Make no mistake: this will result in the president having the de facto ability to create voting ‘blacklists' and wielding extraordinary power over federal elections.”
At the same time, “he will seek to finish off the free press,” allowing him to act without scrutiny, and complete his takeover of the Federal Reserve, allowing him to “detonate the economy” through his unchecked manipulation.
Finally, “he will refuse to leave.” As Taylor notes, Trump and his allies have not been secretive about their desire for him to continue ruling beyond his second term, and no one should be surprised if “he won’t surrender power” willingly. And because of all of this, warns Taylor, “The 2028 election will not be certifiable. With the aforementioned crackdown, Trump will be able to make sure the voter rolls are favorably purged, mail-in voting is gutted, election officials are afraid of prosecution, troops are ready to suppress the vote in opposition cities, a compliant Fed is goosing the economy, and a threatened press is more docile. Whatever happens in that vote, there will be no legitimate way to certify it, and no independent institution left with the ability to review it. Accordingly, the constitutional order will face the prospect of total collapse; indeed, a democracy whose processes are no longer democratic stops being one.”
Voting the GOP out during the midterms, argues Taylor – who, notably, has served in multiple Republican administrations – is the only hope of staving all of this off. As he concludes, “Forestalling such a dystopian future depends on a Congress willing to act. An overwhelming election result will tell Trump that the multitudes have turned against him. He and his officials will be made to fear the prospect of investigations, accountability, and justice, and while this won’t stop the man entirely, it will rein in his power considerably.”
- A January 6 Rerun? Inside Trump’s Effort To “Take Over” The Midterm Elections ›
- Inside Trump’s Elaborate (And Failed) Scheme To Kill Midterm Mail-In Voting ›
- How Trump Is Demolishing Election Security -- And Preparing To Hijack The Midterms ›
- Trump Reveals Fear Of Midterm Defeat: 'We Shouldn't Even Have An Election' ›
- Enraged By Reports Of Shrinking Rally Attendance, Trump Wants Reporters Arrested ›
- Is MAGA Inc. Panicking Over Midterm Polls -- Or Just Trying To Scare Donors? ›
- US midterms: Five days to go – What the polls say as Trump, Harris campaign | US Midterm Elections 2026 News | Al Jazeera ›
- As midterms loom, Trump and his allies try to change the subject | US midterm elections 2026 | The Guardian ›
- Trump declines to unconditionally accept midterm results - The Washington Post ›
- How Trump Could Interfere With the Midterms on Election Day, and the Days After ›
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