A former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official who penned an anonymous op-ed in The New York Times and later a book criticizing former President Trump said on Tuesday he is leaving the Republican Party.
“I’m done. I no longer believe the Republican Party can be saved. The vitriolic rhetoric is inspiring violent radicals. I’m quitting the GOP. And I hope more do the same,” former DHS chief of staff Miles Taylor wrote on Twitter.
In a subsequent tweet, he included a link to an NBC News op-ed he wrote explaining why he was leaving the GOP to become an independent.
He said it was “glaringly obvious” in light of the Saturday mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., — the suspect in which cited the racist “great replacement theory” in a manifesto he posted online — that the Republican Party poses a threat to the United States and does not reflect conservative values.
“The vitriolic GOP rhetoric is inspiring violent radicals, and I don’t say that lightly,” Taylor wrote.
“After more than a decade in counterterrorism, it’s clear to me that my party is mainstreaming conspiracy theories that are fueling a statistical spike in political intimidation, attitudes toward violence and the specter of domestic terrorism that we witnessed this weekend in New York,” he continued.
He argued that the Republican Party was now one “of misinformation and false grievances, of protectionism and nativism, of election subversion and anti-democratic sentiment” and asserted that it pushed baseless...
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