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 claims about the 2020 election being stolen, QAnon conspiracy theories and the same racist theory that fueled the tragic Saturday shooting.
“Make no mistake: There are good people such as [Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.)] in the GOP trying to restore sanity, but I believe that change from inside the party is a lost cause. Real reform — the kind that is needed to restore the soul of our political system — can only be achieved from the outside,” he said.
“Accordingly, conservatives of conscience must quit the GOP and oppose the Republican Party until it is rehabilitated or a suitable alternative is created.”
The development comes just days after 10 people were killed and three others were wounded in Buffalo after a white 18-year-old shooter opened fire at a Tops Friendly Markets. Eleven of the 13 people shot were Black.
The racist “great replacement theory” cited in the suspected perpetrator’s manifesto asserts that there is an intentional effort, through immigration, to replace white Americans with people of color.
Several days after the shooting Cheney wrote on Twitter “the House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism.”
“History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse. @GOP leaders must renounce and reject these views and those who hold them,” she added.