Donald Trump has started selecting people to be part of his administration. The first batch included Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Matt Gaetz, and Robert Kennedy. Some folks consider them deplorable.
Yet, one of the first picks was Stephen Miller. Do you know who he is? Or what position he’ll have in the Trump administration? He won’t hold a cabinet spot. But he will have an office in the White House. He’ll keep his position from 2017 to 2021 as deputy chief of staff for policy.
Miller has been and will continue as one of Trump’s most influential advisors. He’s been in Trump’s orbit for nearly a decade. Miller crafted Trump’s rally speeches and designed immigration policies that banned Muslims and separated families. He will be at the center of the threat to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. The danger to American immigrant families is real. Trump is determined to carry out his threat. Stephen Miller will lead this dehumanizing and cruel assault on people. Indeed, people like most of us. We are all descendants of immigrants who came to America for a better life. Miller is a descendant of a Jewish family that escaped from Russia in 1903.
In a Politico Magazine article, David Glosser, Stephen Miller’s uncle, said,
I have watched with dismay. My nephew, an educated man who is aware of his heritage, has become the architect of immigration policies. These policies repudiate the very foundation of our family’s life in this country.1
David Glosser is a retired neuropsychologist who has written and spoken about his nephew. He describes Stephen’s relationship to the family as follows.
Stephen Miller is part of the Glosser family. The Glossers escaped anti-Jewish pogroms as immigrants. They also avoided forced conscription in the Czar’s army. Wolf-Leib Glosser fled Antopol (now Belarus) and arrived on Ellis Island in 1903. His son Nathan came later. The two arranged for the rest of their family to join them in America. Wolf-Leigh and Nathan, later Sam (David Glosser’s grandfather), developed a chain of supermarkets and discount department stores. David Glasser’s father, Izzy, took over running the chain. Izzy is Stephen Miller’s grandfather.2
Now, Stephen Miller has returned to the White House. He will be one of Trump’s aides. He will also be the force behind the mass deportation. It’s an inhumane plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) conducts research on hate and extremism in America. Stephen Miller is identified in its “extremist files.” Extremists, according to the SPLC, come in many different forms—white nationalists, anti-LGBTQ zealots, racist skinheads, neo-Confederates, and more. Miller is listed as one featured in the “SPLC individual profiles.” In his SPLC individual file,
Stephen Miller is credited with shaping the racist and draconian immigration policies of President Trump. These policies include the zero-tolerance policy, also known as family separation. They also include the Muslim ban and the ending of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Miller has also “purged” government agencies. He removed civil servants who are not entirely loyal to his extremist agenda. This information comes from a report in Vanity Fair.
During the COVID-19 crisis, the Trump administration decided to halt the issuance of new green cards. This decision is yet another example of its hard line on immigration.
Miller consciously uses fearmongering and xenophobia. He implements policies that demonize immigrants, regardless of their immigration status. This appears to be an effort to halt all forms of immigration to the United States.
Below, you’ll find an excerpt from The Trump Files. It’s my account of the effect of Trump’s first administration on American Democracy. It examines Trump’s impact on Human Rights, Science, and Public Health. I’ve included a section of the book on Trumpism. I discussed Stephen Miller about Trump’s run for the presidency in 2016. I also covered his role in Trump’s White House. As I’ve pointed out, Miller is back. He will significantly affect Trump’s plan to deport millions of people living in America.
Millers’ and Trump’s rhetoric of migrants is a despicable mirror image of each other. The two of them carried out a racist immigration policy in their first term. They had help from both knowing and unknowing allies. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Miller used fearmongering and xenophobia to demonize immigrants. Trump (and now Vance) echo Miller’s hatred for immigrants. They especially target those from Muslim countries. They also target Hispanics from Mexico and central South American countries. The SPLC documents Miller’s emergence into anti-immigrant and right-wing ideology.
Trump’s America First
To “prepare” for the presidency, Trump immersed himself in right-wing media. He watched Fox News on cable television. He especially paid attention to right-wing talk radio’s Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and Sean Hannity.
In a recent analysis of how this happened, Lawrence Rosenthal says that this about Trump’s preparation:
The substance of Trump’s presidential campaign focused on the issues he thundered about in rallies and debates. These issues directly resulted from what he found in the right-wing media. What he found there was a populist revolt. This revolt fit well with his political views. It was even more suited to his vulgar, over-the-top style. Donald Trump won the 2016 election by persuading America’s right-wing populists. He convinced them to move ideologically. They shifted from the Tea Party’s free-market fundamentalism to Trump’s anti-immigrant, America First nationalism.
Rosenthal is chair of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies and its lead researcher. The Center was founded in 2009 at the University of California, Berkeley.
America is a liberal democracy two hundred years in the making. In four short years, Donald Trump led an assault on liberal democracy. He did this by undermining the norms of democracy. He surrounded himself with people who were loyal only to him, furthering his autocratic goals.
During his presidency, Trump tried to derail the Mueller investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. He was impeached twice for obstruction of justice and for inciting an insurrection on the US Capitol. No president of the United States has been scrutinized as much as Donald J. Trump.
Bannon and Miller
Trump walked into the Oval Office in January 2017, accompanied by Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller. They carried with them a white nationalist agenda. Bannon was the former executive chairperson of the right-wing Breitbart News Network. He compared himself to Lenin. He suggested that there was a need for war in the United States.3
Bannon was Trump’s chief strategist for seven months in 2017. He had a significant influence over Trump. He particularly influenced the recommendations of cabinet members. These members would help deconstruct departments in the administration of the United States.
He was arrested in 2020 for defrauding people of $25 million. He claimed he was soliciting donations to help fund the wall along the southern border. He was also charged with using $1 million of the funds for personal acquisitions.
After a few days in jail, Bannon was pardoned on January 19, 2021, by Trump.
On November 12, 2021, a federal grand jury indicted him. He was charged with two counts of contempt of Congress. He should have followed a subpoena issued by the Select Committee Investigating the January 6 breach.
Miller, assistant to the president and senior policy advisor, stayed until the end of Trump’s term in office. Miller had formed an anti-immigrant bias in high school and at Duke University.
His first job was as press secretary for Michele Bachman, a Republican representative from Minnesota. Bachman blamed immigrants for bringing crime, drugs, and disease to the country.
Miller then became the communications director for Senator Jeff Sessions, an Alabama senator. His work with Sessions exposed him to the inner workings of immigration law.
Sessions was chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety. Sessions advocated stricter immigration controls and aggressive pushback against President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
As soon as Trump announced his candidacy, Bannon recommended he hire Miller as a speechwriter. Miller directed Trump to promote the America First message and advised promoting stricter immigration policies in the campaign. These issues were highlighted in the presidential debates with Hillary Clinton.
After the election, Miller asked to head the Domestic Policy Council, a group in the White House. Miller made this demand because the position did not need Senate approval. He didn’t want to lie about policy questions if he had to go before the Senate. This tactic also gave him Trump’s ear. It meant he would be the chief architect of Trump’s immigration policy.
Miller co-wrote one of Trump’s first executive orders. It was titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States”—the travel ban.64 Miller became one of Donald Trump’s America First whisperers. According to Jonathan Blitzer4, Miller’s obsession with restricting immigration and punishing immigrants defined Trump’s administration.
According to Jean Guerrero5, author of Hate Monger. This is a biographical work of Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalists’ Agenda. Stephen Miller had a major influence on the Trump era. It’s impossible to understand the Trump era without recognizing this influence.
He was with Trump throughout the campaign and Trump’s years in the White House. He and Trump became experts in messaging. Their expertise was so effective that millions of Americans fell in line with their conspiracies and lies.
Miller, after leaving office with Trump, continues his white supremacist views on various right-wing media outlets. He is reportedly teaming up with Alabama congressperson Mo Brooks. On January 6, 2021, Brooks famously shouted at the “Stop the Steal” rally. “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.” Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America? Louder! Will you fight for America?”
Brooks faces accusations in a legal suit of breaking DC laws. He allegedly incited a riot. This riot aided violent actors who inflicted emotional distress on members of Congress. The Department of Justice refused to defend Brooks.
Mo Brooks is a perfect match for Stephen Miller. Donald Trump showed the kinds of behaviors that historians associate with demagogues.
Instead of a liberal democracy, demagogues foster an illiberal, one-party state. I believe that Trump wished he was president of an illiberal, one-party state. If the insurrection he instigated had been successful, it would have resulted in an overturned-election. America would have become a one-party state.6
Footnotes
- Glosser, David S. Stephen Miller is an Immigration Hypocrite. I Know Because I’m his Uncle. Politico Magazine, August 13, 2018. ? ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy (New York, Doubleday, 2020), 150. ? ↩︎
- Jonathan Blitzer, “How Stephen Miller Manipulates Donald Trump to Further his Immigration Obsession,” The New Yorker, February 21, 2020. ↩︎
- Jean Guerrero, Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda (New York: Harper Collins, 2020). ↩︎
- Hassard, Jack. (2022) The Trump Files: An Accountx of the Trump Administrations Effect on American Democracy, Human Rights, Science , and Public Health. Marietta, GA: Northington-Hearn Publishing. ↩︎
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