The rising cost of dissent in America | Miles Taylor | TEDxMidAtlantic

[applause] Not long ago, I was giving my dog a walk. His name is Martini.

walk. His name is Martini.

That wasn't even a joke. [laughter]

Uh, my wife was out of town and I left my phone inside so I could get away from the incessant buzzing and took him on a nice long walk. And I came back inside and I had one of those moments where

your stomach sinks because I looked at my phone and I had a lot of missed calls. And my first thought was, "My

calls. And my first thought was, "My wife is pissed about something. This is

a lot of calls." But then I looked and it wasn't just a lot of calls. It was

hundreds of phone calls and numbers I didn't recognize, some of them unknown numbers.

And I decided to figure out what this was. And I opened my phone and I opened

was. And I opened my phone and I opened the voicemails to see if these people had left messages.

What you're doing to President Trump is disgusting. You're disgusting people.

disgusting. You're disgusting people.

You're evil and you're going to go down.

You, my friend, are a piece of [ __ ] You are a traitor.

You're pushing for anti-Trump, you dumb [ __ ] We will squash you like a [ __ ] peanut [ __ ] You're done. You're done.

You're done. You're done.

So, eat a dick and die.

Miles, we're going to dock you. You're

not going to be able to walk down the street. You're an anti-American.

street. You're an anti-American.

Leave the country. You're not welcome here anymore. You're anti-American. You

here anymore. You're anti-American. You

hate your country. get out

because you will deserve the wrath of hell. Um, and I think you will get

hell. Um, and I think you will get what's coming to you, God willing.

If you can believe it, those were the nice ones.

So, anyway, um, before I get to that, let me take you back in time. Why did I end up in Washington DC? Like a lot of people, after the attacks of September

11th, 2001, I wanted to come to DC to make sure a day like that never happened again. That was going to be the full

again. That was going to be the full focus of my career. And I came into Washington, the lowest place you can possibly come in on the totem pole as a young messenger on Capitol Hill, a page

messenger delivering envelopes during my junior year in high school. But despite

being the lowest rung on the totem pole, I had the best desk in Washington DC.

And I'm not joking about that. Better

than the Resolute desk inside the White House. Because my desk was in the back

House. Because my desk was in the back of the chamber, the back of the Citadel of Democracy where I had a perch to see the comingings and goings of Congress in the wake of a catastrophic attack. And

if you take a look, that little red circle has a little guy inside of it who's me sitting there watching the president's State of the Union address.

And I'm going to tell you what I saw in Washington in that time period. I saw

unity. I was a young person who was very inspired by seeing members of Congress walk across the literal aisle to work together on legislation to protect this country.

But times change, things fade, everything fades. Fast forward in time,

everything fades. Fast forward in time, I find myself in 2017 as the chief of staff of the US Department of Homeland Security. It's not a time of unity

Security. It's not a time of unity anymore in Washington. I took that job because of the worst sales pitch anyone's ever made for someone to join

their office in history. My boss, John Kelly, said, "Miles, it's not as bad as it looks inside the Trump administration.

It is so much worse."

And I still took that job because I understood what he meant. I understood

he meant we need people who understand how government functions, how national security functions, real conservatives to come in and help steady the ship of these agencies. But I soon saw what he

these agencies. But I soon saw what he saw and what others saw, which is that in meetings with the president, in the White House situation room, in the Oval Office, on Air Force One, I met a man who I had not known previously. And I

found him to be reckless and impulsive at best, and at worst, on days, members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, walked out of the Oval Office with ashen faces,

and they said things like, "The man is a threat to the fabric of our republic." I

knew there was something more serious going on. Now, I will tell you, I'm not

going on. Now, I will tell you, I'm not going to talk about the first Trump administration, but if there was one theme, I had to spend most of my time not focused on the 250,000 men and women of the Department of Homeland Security I

was responsible for helping oversee, but one man who was regularly engaged or attempting to engage in illegal acts. There was no deep state

illegal acts. There was no deep state inside the Trump administration. There

were people willing to speak truth to power and prevent the president from doing illegal things, not to prevent him from implementing a lawful agenda. But I

grew very frustrated because these conversations were happening among us, a group of unelected bureaucrats, naval gazing, ringing our hands, complaining about how unfit the president was for

office. It was not our job to decide if

office. It was not our job to decide if the president was unfit for office. We

would not decide if he got reelected in a second term. That's what you would decide. And I felt like it was very

decide. And I felt like it was very important if these gray beard wise men wouldn't go out and say it in public that someone needed to. So I decided I

would go say what we were talking about in private in public. Now I did that at first anonymously

as many of you know. And I put on that mask not because I was afraid to stand my my opinions, but because I'm a student of history. And my favorite book

is a compendium of essays called the Federalist Papers.

[applause] Total bestseller. All the authors are

Total bestseller. All the authors are dead. [laughter]

dead. [laughter] And the founding fathers wrote anonymous essays to sell the American public on the Constitution, not because they were

scared to associate themselves with those words, but because they knew it would create a spectacle and it would draw attention and to them it was the most important issue of their time to

get the American people to pay attention to this conversation. I did the same thing. I'm not comparing myself to those

thing. I'm not comparing myself to those founders, but I did I used the same device and it worked. You paid

attention. We started a national conversation about how the president's own lieutenants didn't think he was fit for office. That was an important

for office. That was an important conversation to have whether you agreed with us or didn't agree with us. One

person also noticed and in a sevenlet all caps tweet he said treason.

And I was grateful that there was a question mark because treason is punishable by death in the United States. So at least if

there was a question, I had a chance.

The president of the United States subsequently said he wanted the author found and turned in for national security reasons. But as I later find

security reasons. But as I later find out, the White House gave up the search because lawyers in the White House said this article was First Amendment protected speech. we can't pursue this

protected speech. we can't pursue this person. It's not treason. We're not

person. It's not treason. We're not

going to arrest them. But that was not enough for me. In 2020, I felt like I needed to take off the mask because behind the mask, I was sending the signal that it was okay to sit in the dark and put your opinions out there and

not take accountability before that election. I needed to go out there and

election. I needed to go out there and tell you the specific things that I saw to buttress those claims I made in that piece and let you make up your damn

minds about whether this guy deserved to be reelected.

Once again, he noticed.

We'll get to that in a second.

And he said at campaign rallies, "Bad things are going to happen to Miles Taylor." And he was right. They did. His

Taylor." And he was right. They did. His

supporters made sure of it.

As a consequence of his rhetoric, as a consequence of accusing me of treason, I had to leave my home on Capitol Hill. I

lost my job that I had taken in the private sector after I left the administration. I was fired from that

administration. I was fired from that job.

I lost my life savings, spending it on lawyers, my security, friends, and on election night 2020, I found myself in a safe

house in Northern Virginia under armed guard with a pistol under my pillow because so many of my fellow Americans

believed I should die for criticizing the president of the United States. Fast

forward to April 9th of this year. Of

course, Donald Trump lost that election in 2020. He won. He came back to power.

in 2020. He won. He came back to power.

And on that day, I was out and about again with Martini, which means, you know, something bad's going to happen. He was a dirty Martini.

I had to take him to the groomers. We

got him cleaned. I came home and I got a message from a journalist who said, "You need to turn on the news. The president

of the United States is talking about you in the Oval Office." And I pulled it up on my phone and there was Donald Trump. And there was Donald Trump

Trump. And there was Donald Trump declaring not that I might be guilty of treason. The question mark was gone. He

treason. The question mark was gone. He

told the American people in the world that he believed I was guilty of the highest crime contemplated in the United States Constitution. A reminder, a crime

States Constitution. A reminder, a crime punishable by death. And as legal scholars later told me, it was the first time in 249 years of the American

republic that a president of the United States has issued an executive order to investigate one of his critics for first amendment protected speech.

Now, you would be right to ask a question. If treason is tantamount to

question. If treason is tantamount to murder, why am I standing here right now? Why am I not in handcuffs?

now? Why am I not in handcuffs?

Why am I not in a jail cell? And whether

you agree with me or not, I will tell you the answer. The answer is because the US justice system has not caught up to the president's view that criticism

of a president is subversive, that criticism should be criminalized, that you need a permission slip to criticize the president. The justice

system hasn't caught up to that yet.

But you know who did?

The same people before that followed his dog whistles. They were paying

dog whistles. They were paying attention.

Miles Taylor, what the [ __ ] are you thinking? Going against Trump, you and

thinking? Going against Trump, you and your cronies.

I really don't appreciate you putting out garbage. Do you want to be looking

out garbage. Do you want to be looking at defamation of character, etc., etc., for putting out lies because everybody's

on it and own you.

Your names are going to go viral because you are treasonous ilk to our country.

You are what is wrong with America. You

s are a piece of [ __ ] And we don't we don't forgive traders.

Wow. Just letting you know that your effort to try to keep the GOAT, the greatest president of all time, it's not going to work. You guys poked the bear.

You woke the sleeping giant.

We're coming, my man.

These folks are not getting invited to Thanksgiving at the Taylor household.

But I will tell you, joking aside, those consequences were real. Everything that

we had rebuilt since 2020 when our lives were detonated was kicked over again because of all of this. The address of our home that we had moved to to protect my family was doxed. Our phone numbers were doxed. My wife asked me, "Do we

were doxed. My wife asked me, "Do we need to sell the house to be able to pay for the legal fees?" The business that I had built in the wake of this that cut checks for 50 people was destroyed. And

those 50 people no longer received paychecks. But the hardest for me as a

paychecks. But the hardest for me as a father and a husband was watching not just me get death threats. My wife be threatened, my one-year-old daughter

threatened, and her image posted on the internet. That's not okay.

internet. That's not okay.

And it forced us to take legal action against people we've never met in this country. Even today, I will tell you the

country. Even today, I will tell you the truth. My security adviser said he did

truth. My security adviser said he did not want me to come speak to you today.

And we know why. Because of the environment we are in. But think about that for a second. The irony that a speech about free speech can't be given in the land of the free without fear of

reprisal.

What's so remarkable about my experience and the reason I shared it with you today is that it is unremarkable now because what has happened to me is

happening from people at the member of Congress level all the way down to state representatives and parks and recreation directors and you name it in this country. Pole workers who are threatened

country. Pole workers who are threatened with crowdsourced violence. members of

Congress who are scared to hold town halls because of their constituents on the left and on the right. I'm going to give you a data point about this 10x.

The year Donald Trump was elected president, there were a thousand death threats a year to members of Congress. A

thousand violent threats. By the time he left office, that had gone up 10fold to 10,000 death threats a year. And this is roughly where the number has hovered.

and it is indicative of what we are seeing in other parts of our society.

But I didn't need the data points to know this. I'll tell you what my data

know this. I'll tell you what my data point was. My data point was a desk on

point was. My data point was a desk on January 6, 2021. You all know what happened. What you probably don't know

happened. What you probably don't know is that a desk was slid from the corner of the House chamber. the desk I had sat at as a congressional page in a Washington unified against a foreign

enemy and it was slid in front of the door and it was the last line of defense against a violent mob of insurrectionists.

I get chills still talking about that because of how quickly our world changed in that time period.

Now we know a lot of scary things have happened recently. We saw the

happened recently. We saw the assassination of a top political commentator on the right. Just last

week, the top Democrat in Congress had an assassination plot foiled against him. And so it begs the question, who is

him. And so it begs the question, who is responsible for the price of dissent being so high in America? Why are people fearing for

in America? Why are people fearing for their lives to speak their political opinions?

And if you think my answer is Donald Trump, you would be wrong.

Unfortunately, my answer is you or some of you. NPR just came out with a survey the other week that showed one in

three one in three Americans now believe that political violence would be justified to put the country back on track.

I'm going to give you another one in three. One in three Americans own a cat.

three. One in three Americans own a cat.

[snorts] A feline. Unfortunately, we had five of

A feline. Unfortunately, we had five of them in my household. Thanks, Dad.

One in three. So, statistically, if you come visit the United States and you shake someone's hand on the subway, they are just as likely to possess a cat as they are to possess the view that they should potentially kill their fellow

Americans to put the country back on track. Think about that. Now, I want to

track. Think about that. Now, I want to ask you a question. Which political

affiliation do you think is more likely to hold this view? Is it the Democrats?

Is it the Republicans?

You're all wrong.

It's Democrats and Republicans in equal measure statistically. Now, you be you

measure statistically. Now, you be you might be sitting there saying, "Miles, but I'm not one of those one-third. I'm

not one of those. I didn't call your phone that day. At least I don't think any of you did.

And again, statistically, you're probably right. You probably fit into

probably right. You probably fit into this category because a recent survey found that two out of three Americans are now actively admitting to

self-censoring their views out of fear of reprisal. It's not just people inside

of reprisal. It's not just people inside the beltway. It's you.

the beltway. It's you.

We're all doing it. We're all guilty of it. The same survey found that the vast

it. The same survey found that the vast majority of Americans agree in private on almost all the controversial issues in our society. Immigration, abortion,

climate change, you name it. Survey

found majorities agree on those issues, but they're scared to say it, including they're afraid to repudiate political violence. So, who's responsible for the

violence. So, who's responsible for the price of dissent being so high in this country? It's not Donald Trump. It's not

country? It's not Donald Trump. It's not

even the one-third of Americans who believe we might have to use polit political violence against one another.

It's the twothirds.

In my opinion, the greatest threat to democracy today is anonymity.

And I understand that that's ironic coming from me. I get it.

It's anonymity.

We are wearing our figurative masks. We

are scared to tell the truth. And you

know what? When we're scared to tell the truth, intimidation works. It works

very, very well. And I'm going to close by saying this. The question is, how do we fix it? Then

I'm going to give you an economics lesson. Oh god, this talk just got

lesson. Oh god, this talk just got awful.

If you remember supply and demand curves in any marketplace, when supply and demand meet, that's what determines the price. Okay? If as many people want

price. Okay? If as many people want pencils as there are pencils out there, boop, that's the price. I don't know, a buck 50 a pencil.

If the price of disscent in this country is high today, how do you lower it?

Economics teaches you there are only two ways. That's it. There's two ways to

ways. That's it. There's two ways to lower that price. One,

you could decrease demand. You decrease

demand for pencils. We don't want them anymore. We're using pens, the price

anymore. We're using pens, the price will go down. But when it comes to dissent and truth and debate in this country, if you believe in what the founders said about America, you don't

want to do that. We don't want to decrease the demand for truth and debate and the possibility of reaching a court on important issues.

So the only way to lower the price in any marketplace is to increase the supply.

That is you.

You are the good in that marketplace.

We need more disscent. We need people unafraid to step forward and speak the truth. And so I will close by just

truth. And so I will close by just saying this. There's a lot of scary

saying this. There's a lot of scary things happening right now in this country. A lot of scary things. And I

country. A lot of scary things. And I

understand the inclination to ask what is going on here.

But before you answer that question, I want you to ask yourself and the people around you another question.

Am I anonymous still?

Because if the answer is yes to that, then you also know the solution. It's

within your control. And that solution is it's time to take off the mask.

Thank you.

[applause]