Blowback

April 17, 2023
Taylor, the former Homeland Security official who anonymously denounced the Trump administration in 2019’s A Warning, returns with a mixed-bag thought experiment on what would happen if the “Make America Great Again movement does the unthinkable and retakes the White House.” Noting that Trump got pushback from the “adults” in the room, Taylor claims that those guardrails would not be present in a second term. Even if a “savvier successor,” rather than Trump himself, wins the presidency, distrust of the federal bureaucracy and the instinct to distort reality will rule the day. Taylor identifies numerous areas of concern, including an October 2020 executive order that would have allowed Trump “to strip large parts of the federal workforce of their employment protections.” Though President Biden repealed the order, it could be revived by Trump or a “Trump-like figure,” leading to a “mass exodus” of competent, experienced, and law-abiding officials. Throughout, Taylor interweaves snapshots of his life before and after he went public as the author of A Warning, revealing how his relationships and mental health suffered. Unfortunately, the book’s rhetorical flourishes, including a scene set in 2019 in which Taylor suggests that Trump was about to push the “nuclear button” in the Oval Office, then reveals he was simply ordering a Diet Coke, undermine its core message. This is a disappointment.