In American politics, the Presidency is more often than not the figure head of a larger agenda. A party picks a candidate through primaries and caucuses, and after every state counts their votes from all of them, officially nominates the candidate with the most delegates be their nominee to run for president of the United States.
But behind the scenes, there are players at large that are put into positions of power, whether being appointed, or confirmed in the Senate. There are also people who are not part of the government, but who donate millions of dollars, and/or have a critical influence in American politics at large. Then there are those who use media and their influence to shill or grift off the moment they are in, exploiting it as much and as often as they can, often disguising themselves as truth seekers or journalists, and these days, you often see them behind a microphone like I am.
These are the people who run the engine of the administrations agenda for the four years they are in office, or who push ideologies that can remain in place well after the President leaves office. Both pull the strings of the presidency in ways not often understood or quite at the surface of what hits the mainstream news. In this news series called Who is ______ ?, I will go into who these people are, where the came from, and what influence they have on the Presidency and American politics overall.
You may know Stephen Miller as Donald Trump's 39 year old White House Deputy Chief of Staff, but Miller's rise to that position began a long time ago. Stephen Miller is without a doubt, one of the most dangerous people within the U.S. government, and is one of the most powerful.
Born in Santa Monica, California, Miller is the descendant of Jewish couple Miriam and Michael Miller. His mother Miriam's parents Louis W. Glosser and his wife Bessie emigrated to the United States from what was then known under the Russian Empire's Antopol in 1906.
His political career unsurprisingly starts with a bit of a bang. In a video that was made during his time at "Samohi", which is short for Santa Monica High School, he was filmed by then student filmmakers Jenness Hartley and Rachel Greenberg. The video was called 'Strange Times at Samohi'. It starts out almost exactly as you'd imagine in a movie about fascism. Political theater, hard to believe, but happening before your eyes.
"Hi. I'm Stephen Miller. Some of you may or may not know who I am. But we don't have time to get into that right now. I'm the only candidate who stands out." - For context, he was running for student president and was just starting a speech for his candidacy. He goes on to say - "I will say, and I will do things, that no one else, in their right mind, would say or do." He then says... "Am I the only one who is sick and tired of being told to pick up our trash when we have plenty of janitors who are paid to do it for us?"
There's a moment not too far after he utters those words in the video where he's being pushed off the stage, and is yelling at the crowd. The video is over almost as soon as it started, trailing off and then credits rolling until it wraps up, taking about 5 minute total.
It's a microcosm into the mind of Miller, and only the beginning in what ends up being a lifetime of hateful vitriol that ends up landing him inside of the White House not once, but twice for President Donald Trump.
QUOTES BY MILLER -
“[T]his is a good chance to expose that ridiculous statue of liberty myth. Poem has nothing to do with it … Indeed, two decades after poem was added, Coolidge shut down immigration.” — Sept. 13, 2015, Miller’s response to two Republican senators voicing their sympathy for refugees
“Like the mystics of old, the one sure way to get rich in modern America is to offer yourself up as a virtue signal to those seeking to prove themselves members in good standing of the national religion – diversity.” — Nov. 23, 2015, Miller sarcastically referring to diversity as the United States’ “national religion”
Miller's career spans over a decade in conservative and right wing politics. Starting with his time on Capitol Hill, he worked for the likes of Michele Bachmann, a former Republican member of the House of Representatives as a press secretary, John Shadegg, a former U.S. representative from Arizona, as a communications director, and then former U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, again as a communications director. During his time with Sessions, Miller was a crucial piece in unraveling the bipartisan immigration reform bill in 2013.
As Trump came along, Stephen Miller found himself within Trumps campaign, and later tight circle of trust. Miller joined Trump's presidential campaign as a policy adviser and then became a key speechwriter, creating speeches that included Trump's Republican National Convention address. Miller promoted white nationalist literature, pushing racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof’s murderous rampage before the 2016 election to conservative rag Breitbart News from 2015-2016.
Once Trump was elected in 2016, Miller became the senior policy advisor to Trump, and was a critical piece of the 2017 travel ban which was directed at several Muslim-majority countries, and many of the immigration policies that included reducing refugee admissions, stricter border security, and separating children of parents who had crossed illegally through the US-Mexico border.
When Trump left office in January 2021, Stephen Miller continued his career as a vicious and unapologetic white supremacist, by founding the Miller founded America First Legal Foundation. The AFL is an organization that attempts to push the white nationalist conservative agenda concerning immigration and other policy areas.
After Trump was re-elected for his second term in November of 2024, Miller took over as Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor. Miller again became a central figure in Trump's efforts to crack down on immigration and implement mass deportations. And with a full second term to do so, without the people in Trump’s first administration there to provide the unlikely and surprising stopgaps (Pence, Comey, etc), Miller can continue his scorched earth approach with no restraints.
He has so much power and influence within Trump’s inner circle and administration, that he is even reported to have met with Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Mar-a-Lago late last year.
According to this report, Miller told Zuckerberg, he had an opportunity to help reform America, but it would be on President-elect Donald J. Trump’s terms. He made clear that Mr. Trump would crack down on immigration and go to war against the diversity, equity and inclusion, or D.E.I., culture that had been embraced by Meta and much of corporate America in recent years.
Miller is also tied to Palantir, according to the Project on Government Oversight. In a previously unreported financial stake in the company, Miller had $100,000 in stocks with Palantir, and now has over $250,000, which raises a clear conflict of interest. As a reminder of who Palantir is (and why this is so important and alarming); the company is a data mining corporation headquartered in Denver, Colorado. They have deep ties to the U.S. government, specifically U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Pentagon. Palantir is owned by co-founder and chairman Peter Thiel (we will be doing another Who is ____? story on him, don’t worry).
This presents a very strong tie and an unmistakable endorsement to a company that’s sole focus is stockpiling data on Americans and undocumented immigrants, with the help AND support of the U.S. government. This shouldn’t be surprising, and only confirms further Miller’s fervent excitement to see undocumented immigrants removed from the United States without exception, and to profit off of it.
Miller’s power goes even deeper, with mostly full autonomy to speak out on behalf of Trump and the goals of the administration. He is probably one of the loudest mouth pieces for them and is regularly on Fox News, Newsmax, and other extreme right-wing, conservative media outlets.
Having the ear president, recently Stephen Miller has been pushing for a daily minimum goal of 3,000 arrests from ICE. On May 28th, he went on Fox News and said as much. He also warned that President Trump would “keep pushing to get that number up.” Trump and Miller are looking for green light of racial profiling as well.
According to Reuters, “President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to lift a lower court order that barred U.S. government agents from making immigration-related arrests in Los Angeles based on tactics that critics have called racial profiling.”
It remains to be seen what the highest court in the U.S. will do, but the door feels open, and the court has shown that it is willing to let Trump’s regime chip away at our constitutional rights.
Stephen Miller is a ruthless racist with, I would wager a near zero percentage of empathy inside of him. That makes him the perfect mouth piece for a wanna be dictator and fascist in Donald Trump. He’s the perfect yes man who will say exactly what is on the administrations’ mind, take the heat and get his 8 hours of suggested sleep without much effort. But he’s also not stupid. He’s calculated and he knows what to say. He has the ear of Trump, but he also has the right psyche for the job that Trump wants him to do. And only Trump of course, but the entire ultra conservative, extreme right wing movement.
All you have to do is which any 30 second clip of Stephen Miller talking so intensively he’s nearly spitting into the microphone, and you can see he lives, eats, and breathes fascism. That’s an extremely important piece of information. Because it means any rest you think you can get in the fight against fascism, Stephen Miller will not be taking on the other side.
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