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T**** has come after me, and he may come after you
How far will his revenge agenda go?
Miles Taylor is former chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security and editor of the newsletter TREASON.
Two months ago, President Trump ordered a federal investigation into me. He invoked executive authority to name me personally in a directive accusing me of “treason” and calling for punitive action — not because I broke any law, but because I served in his first administration, I sounded the alarm about his misconduct in an anonymous op-ed in The New York Times, and then I quit and spoke out against him in my own name.
Now with the sudden deployment of US military personnel into California, Americans should open their eyes to an unprecedented reality: The president of the United States has a sweeping revenge agenda, and it goes much further than individual dissenters.
To be clear, much of this was foreseeable. Trump pledged “retribution” during his campaign. Many of us who worked for him came forward to warn it would be the all-consuming priority of his second term.
More than a year before his reelection, I compiled a comprehensive overview of the revenge actions he would take if he won a second term and documented them. In “Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from Trump’s Revenge‚” I explained how the former president viewed federal power not as a tool for service, but as a cudgel for punishment. I revealed Trump’s desire in the first term to use America’s spy agencies against perceived enemies, deploy the military in US cities, and hijack the justice system to prosecute critics. And I explained that in a second term these types of anti-constitutional ideas would not be shot down by law-abiding public servants but would be carried out by staunch loyalists.
Those fears are materializing in real time.
Since taking office, the president has launched a full-frontal assault on institutions he views as personal adversaries. This includes wielding presidential power to punish law firms, universities, and even businesses he deems as being threats to his agenda. What’s more, media outlets have been targeted, nonprofit watchdogs maligned, and civil servants sacked en masse or sidelined.
He’s also pursuing individual opponents directly. Legal scholars have noted that the executive order naming me is without precedent in US history as it directs a federal investigation into a private citizen solely for protected speech. It has already upended my family’s life personally, financially, and in terms of physical security. We’ve even had to launch a legal defense fund so we don’t lose our home amid rising legal costs.
But more alarming is how quickly the scope of Trump’s revenge campaign is expanding beyond these targets to entire swaths of the country.
The White House has ordered troops into Los Angeles, ostensibly to quell riots in response to immigration arrests. But those of us who worked under Trump know better. He’s been looking for the opportunity to use the military to advance his agenda, especially in Democratic-leaning states and localities.
The situation in California is a manufactured pretext to make that happen.
What once seemed unimaginable — a militarized presidency enforcing the dictates of an increasingly authoritarian state — is beginning to take form. Even if the actions in California fall short of a formal invocation of the president’s most extreme emergency powers, such as the Insurrection Act, the precedent is perilous.
Deploying the military in service of a political message is the crossing of a Rubicon.
Americans must be clear-eyed about what may come next. The president could take the next step and invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the military into other cities that defy his directives. He could declare a national emergency to seize control of communications infrastructure or justify mass arrests of protestors. He could weaponize surveillance tools designed for foreign threats against domestic critics.
These hypotheticals may seem outlandish, but so are the actions we have already seen from the White House. Indeed, these are powers that exist under federal statute, and in the hands of a man obsessed with revenge, they become tools of repression.
The danger is not just that presidential authority could be abused. It already is — in sweeping and unprecedented fashion. The real danger is that Americans may come to accept it or to see it as merely politics. The slow normalization of authoritarian tactics is how democracies erode: not with one dramatic moment, but with a series of escalating actions that become routine.
Such a dark outcome is not inevitable. There are still ways to pull back from the brink.
Federal institutions, such as inspectors general, courts, and state governments, must be willing to act. Whistleblowers and public servants must speak out, even at great personal risk. And most importantly, the American people must reject the idea that a president can use the powers of the state to settle personal scores.
If we fail to oppose a president implementing a “revenge agenda” — any president, of any political party — we may soon find ourselves in a country where dissent is treated as a crime, where loyalty is rewarded above lawfulness, and where the line between democracy and autocracy is all but erased.
That’s the question we now face: not whether the revenge agenda is real — but whether we’re prepared to stop it, before it’s too late.
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