Консерватор Майлз Тейлор когда-то занимал высокий пост в первой администрации Трампа, работая руководителем аппарата в Министерстве внутренней безопасности США (DHS). Позднее он стал открытым критиком президента Дональда Трампа. В статье для британского i Paper Тейлор говорит, что все больше республиканцев теперь "break with Trump" и утверждает, что у "paranoid" президента есть основания считать, что за ними последуют и другие.

"Donald Trump is going through the stages of grief over a growing defiance of him and his movement," пишет Тейлор в i Paper. "The possibility of Democrats retaking power and investigating him triggered the first phases: denial and anger. Last week, he entered the 'bargaining' phase, as evidenced by his son-in-law taking a secret meeting with a top House Democrat, evidently in an effort to find common ground. But I can tell you — from 10 years of watching Trump's movement, first inside his administration and then battling it from the outside at close quarters — that he's harboring a deeper worry than being investigated by liberals. He fears his fellow conservatives even more — because he knows we're the ones who beat him last time."

Бывший чиновник администрации Трампа продолжает: "He has good reason to remember. In the autumn of 2020, I helped organize a wave of former Trump administration officials to come out publicly against the president we'd served. Our ranks included Cabinet officials, intelligence chiefs, and once-loyal White House staff who saw behind the curtain and couldn't accept the thought of Trump's reelection. CNN's Jake Tapper devoted an hour-long special to the historic defections, just weeks before Election Day."

Тейлор отмечает, что Трамп "still blames many of us for costing him" президентские выборы 2020 года, добавляя, что "his paranoia isn't entirely misplaced."

"The data afterwards showed a meaningful slice of Republican voters crossing over for Joe Biden, plenty of them for the first time in their lives, in the handful of states that decided the outcome," объясняет Тейлор. "Those voters were not won over by Democrats. It was fellow Republicans who gave them the air cover to do it. Political scientists have a name for this phenomenon. They call it a 'permission structure.' Most people don't change their vote because the other side made a great argument. They change it when somebody they already trust — someone who shares their tribe — tells them it's all right to flip."

Тейлор продолжает: "A Democrat telling a lifelong Republican that Trump is unfit for office is pretty much just background noise. But a Republican who sat in the Trump White House and saw the corruption? That's permission. We built that structure in 2020, and it worked in a way no Democratic attack ad could."

Тейлор приводит бывшую конгрессвумен Марджори Тейлор Грин (R-Georgia), бывшего ведущего Fox News Такера Карлсона и бывшего сотрудника администрации Трампа по борьбе с терроризмом Джо Кента в качестве примеров бывших союзников Трампа, которые публично отвернулись от него, подчеркивая, что список отступников будет продолжать расти.

"Trump built his movement on the idea that criticizing him is treason," пишет Тейлор. "His former allies are busy proving that it isn't. And if they are successful, then Trump's last two stages of grief — depression and forced acceptance — will be scheduled for the first week of November."