On Thursday, former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor was on MSNBC warning that his old party, the GOP, in now the #1 national security threat the nation faces. I'm guessing Trump had Taylor in mind when he issued this ad hominem statement to his lapdogs:
Taylor: "I titled my book A Warning for a reason. It was a year before the election and I said in that book if Donald Trump loses reelection, he will deny that he lost and it will lead to violence. This was foreseeable and it's not hyperbole to say this man implemented Nazi-like polices and had Nazi-like tendencies. We saw it up close, He was an authoritarian; he loved authoritarians. And in Oval office meetings with me, he would talk about his 'magical powers' like the Insurrection Act that he wanted to use to do extraordinary things... I have no doubt that he considered a coup."
Taylor said he assumed that "in Donald Trump's mind he believed there was a scenario where he could deploy the United States military in such a way to deny Joe Biden from taking office. That was the fear I had the year before the election; it was a fear I had in the days after the election... I’ve spent my whole career not as a political operative. I’ve never worked on a campaign in my life other than campaigning against Trump. I’m a national security guy. I’ve worked in national security against ISIS, and al Qaeda and Russia. And the No. 1 national security threat I’ve ever seen in my life to this country’s democracy is the party that I’m in-- the Republican Party. It is the No. 1 security national security threat to the United States of America. And I'll tell you this: if my party takes the U.S. House of Representatives in the next cycle, it's going to become a 'hunted House' and the ghoul in the specter haunting is going to be Donald Trump. And if Kevin McCarthy's hand is on the speaker's gavel, it's really Donald Trump's hand on the speaker's gavel. And the fact that Kevin McCarthy continues to pay homage to a twice impeached presidential loser I think should give all Americans pause and make them worry about the future of this country and it's security."
This afternoon, I was talking with Bruno Amato, the progressive Democrat running to unseat and replace McCarthy. "What more cowardice," asked, "do we need to see from Kevin McCarthy? His trip to meet Trump again, only proves who is really running things in the GOP. McCarthy is not the GOP leader, or anyone's leader, he couldn't lead a troop of cub scouts out of the woods. McCarthy needs to be subpoenaed by the January 6th Commission as soon as possible!"
Shervin Aazami's San Fernando Valley district isn't far from where Bruno is facing off against McCarthy. Having spent years in Washington as a staffer, Shervin reminded me today that "The American people gave Democrats the mandate to lead, and they are expecting the Democrats to deliver-- on healthcare, climate justice, racial justice, wealth and wage inequities, and so forth. But above all else-- the single most important legislative priority Democrats must get done before the midterm elections-- is protecting the sacred right to vote. I am gravely concerned for what may happen in the absence of bold legislative action on voting rights. If we want to act on climate and avoid catastrophic climate catastrophe, we need to protect the right to vote. If we want single-payer Medicare for All, we need to protect the right to vote. If we want to divest from the US war machine, we need to protect the right to vote. And so on."
Aazami explained that we're "witnessing a systematic assault on voting rights in GOP-controlled states across the country. Texas Democrats are literally in Washington right now demanding that congressional Democrats act boldly on voting rights legislation-- namely the For The People Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Act. They are absolutely right. The fact is, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx organizers delivered the House, Senate, and Presidency to the Democrats. We must not take that for granted. How is it okay for Democrats to continue asking for the Black vote and then turn around and not protect Black voting rights? To protect the filibuster is to protect racist voter suppression laws. Democrats always say voting rights are paramount-- it’s past time we acted to protect that right. Our democracy depends on it."
