Miles Taylor, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff at the Department of Homeland Security during President Donald Trump's first term, on Friday laid out what he described as the final phase of MAGA's "dystopian" push for power. Taylor — who became widely known for revealing secrets from inside the Trump White House, most famously as the anonymous author of a 2018 New York Times opinion column describing internal resistance within the administration before confirming his identity in 2020 — argues that the president has spent the past two years working to take total control of the government, and that he will "finish the job" if the midterm results leave him room to do so.

"In January," Taylor wrote, "I posted a scorecard of the major warnings I'd made about a second Trump term. Ninety percent had already come true." His forecasts drew 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.

Contesting the results

According to Taylor, the first step is already underway: "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."

In recent weeks, the Justice Department has issued grand jury subpoenas to election officials in California and Washington in an effort to cancel 20,000 mail ballots from voters it calls noncitizens — a request a judge blocked. "This could get much uglier," Taylor warns, "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 Trump succeeds in muddling the election enough, Taylor writes, he will keep his grip on the legislative branch.

Prosecuting critics and flouting the courts

From there, Taylor predicts, Trump will ramp up his attempts to prosecute and jail critics. Many such cases have already occurred, he notes, and the next targets will be "governors, members of Congress, donors, organizers, protesters, and more."

At the same time, Trump will "flout the courts." Last year, Trump warned reporters that he had 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,'" Taylor writes. That would be accompanied by the permanent deployment of troops in the streets. The Insurrection Act, a statute dating to 1807, allows a president to deploy U.S. troops on domestic soil and has been invoked only rarely in American history. The Supreme Court has already blocked early stages of this effort, but Taylor says that if Trump eliminates the final constitutional check on his power, "by the summer of 2027, I expect soldiers policing major American cities."

Rewriting the rules of voting

To ensure his control goes unchallenged, Taylor predicts Trump will "rewrite the rules of who gets to vote." The House has already passed the SAVE Act — short for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act — which would end online and mail registration for millions. Though the measure stalled in the Senate, Taylor argues Trump will manage to secure its passage if power doesn't change hands in Congress. He notes that the Supreme Court has already allowed the Department of Homeland Security to hand states an expanded citizenship database to scrub their voter rolls, and that Trump's 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," Taylor writes. At the same time, he says Trump will "seek to finish off the free press," allowing him to act without scrutiny, and complete his takeover of the Federal Reserve — enabling him to "detonate the economy" through unchecked manipulation.

Refusing to leave

Finally, Taylor asserts, "he will refuse to leave." Trump and his allies, he notes, have not been secretive about their desire for Trump to continue ruling beyond his second term, and no one should be surprised if "he won't surrender power" willingly.

"The 2028 election will not be certifiable," Taylor warns. "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."

The midterms as a check

Voting the GOP out during the midterms, Taylor argues — notably, as someone who has served in multiple Republican administrations — is the only hope of staving off this scenario. The November 2026 midterm contests will put every seat in the House of Representatives and roughly a third of the Senate on the ballot, the first nationwide congressional elections of Trump's second term.

"Forestalling such a dystopian future depends on a Congress willing to act," he concludes. "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."