STEPHEN MILLER

This is no good. I’m sorry. No good at all.

There is no excuse for this in the year of Our Lord 2018.

Speaking of the Lord, what in God’s name has happened here?

Is Stephen Miller — far-right political activist, accomplished speechwriter, natty millennial dresser and he of the hooded eyelids, all 32 checkered years of him — respected enough among those in Trump’s camp and by Trump himself to really have a voice?

And if so, why?

Here exists the textbook definition of ‘a rhetorical question,’ the purest essence of it.

But a resounding ‘yes he is,’ would be the answer.

No surprise really; Miller is an unabashed and unapologetic right-wing nationalist. And has been for all of his young life.

C’mon man….c’mon now…

Well, the Donald certainly values his opinion, along with the opinions of a few of those selected nitwits who also hold this mooncalf in high regard.

Actually, Miller is no rube. He is the point man (child) on the roiling immigrant family separation brouhaha.

You know, ‘zero tolerance sends the most powerful and impactful message. We must steer the president in the direction we believe he wants to go.’

Defenseless children separated from their parents.

Why?

Because Miller has decreed it, pending approval.

And he got it; the approval that is.

He and Laura Ingraham must be pals. She described this horrific turn of events — 2,300 children taken away in the month of May alone and placed in scattered makeshift southern border detention centers — as “summer camp” for the kids. It would be nice to think that some sort of apology will be forthcoming…so as to save her job. Sadly that would be her only motivation.

“Kick those SOBs out! Fire ‘em…!!!” Sound familiar?

Stephen Miller is a senior policy advisor to President Donald Trump. Thank in reverse order, Jeff Sessions, Michele Bachmann and John Shadegg for fueling his ascent.

He serves with Jared Kushner and has worked closely with former Homeland Security Secretary and now Chief of Staff John Kelly.

A speechwriter for Trump, Miller has been a key man since the administration’s early days beginning in late-January of 2017. He was a major player in and chief architect of Trump’s executive order restricting immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries. And he has had plenty of say in the administration’s reduction of refugees accepted to the United States and also with regard to Trump’s neo-Nazi inhumane policy of separating migrant children from their parents.

His personal history clearly indicates that tempting fate, stirring controversy, taunting, bullying and then employing all of that as political strategy defines him.

Real constructive engagement? Not so much.

Rather more like, “it’s good to trigger the libs…[for] the purpose of enlightenment.”

Provocateur?

Troll?

Both. And then some.

McKay Coppins, writing for The Atlantic, astutely describes Miller as someone who “has been courting infamy since puberty. From [3,400-student] Santa Monica High School to Duke University to Capitol Hill, his mission always has been to shock and offend the progressive sensibilities of his peers. He revels in riling them, luxuriates in their disdain.”

Very well put.

And this now-signature behavior is okay? It is with all things Trump-related. This is the bed we made.

“No nation can have the policy that whole classes of people are immune from immigration law or enforcement. It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period. The message is that no one is exempt from immigration law.”

— Stephen Miller

SIMPLE?

“You have one party that’s in favor of open borders, and you have one party that wants to secure the border. All day long the American people are going to side with the party that wants to secure the border. And not by a little bit. Not 55–45. 60–40. 70–30. 80–20. I’m talking 90–10 on that.”

— Stephen Miller

“I’M TALKING, ‘NOT ALL DAY LONG AND LET’S SEE THE QUANTITATIVE ANALYSES.’”

— PJK

Remarks such as these are typical of Miller, an ultra-conservative (white supremacist?).

A troll and agitator.

He claims that to generate what he describes as “constructive controversy — with the purpose of enlightenment,” is of great value to him but really it is nothing if not euphemistic for niggling, pestering and getting under the skin.

Instigating, goading, inciting.

Observes Coppins, this approach dates back “to the snowflake-melting and lib-triggering of his youth.

As a conservative teen growing up in Santa Monica, he wrote op-eds comparing his liberal classmates to terrorists and musing that Osama bin Laden would fit [right] in at his high school. In college, he coordinated an ‘Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.’

These efforts were not designed to be persuasive; they were designed to [ruffle, unnerve and unhinge]. And now that he’s in the White House, he is deploying similar tactics.”

Miller’s hardline approach to immigration predates his alliance with Trump and before that, his tenure as an aide to then-Senator Jeff Sessions.

He made his name on Capitol Hill fighting fiercely against a bipartisan immigration-reform bill alongside alt-right (feigning populist) media likes such as Breitbart News.

The collective effort to waylay the legislation was successful and his credentials as a true-believing ideologue and staunch advocate were secure.

But he was an avowed restrictionist well before that.

Chauncey DeVega writing for Salon examined Miller’s background in searing detail, sparing little including the irony and hypocrisy embedded in the persona of a Jewish boy who would grow up to embrace and extol nationalist and supremacist tenets. Advancing a political agenda in which nonwhites are treated as second-class citizens and whites are empowered exclusively.

Of Jewish heritage — his maternal grandparents immigrated to America to escape anti-Semitic pogroms in the Russian Empire — there seems to be no link, a disconnect.

His great-grandfather Nison Miller was denied legal asylum in the United States but made it into the country regardless.

(“Order of Court Denying Petition” is the title of a government form dated ’14 November 1932’ and discovered by researchers proving Miller’s family history was dotted by illegal immigration).

How to explain then Stephen Miller’s natural bent toward and undeniable affinity for such present-day moral malfeasance?

DeVega wonders if it began in high school in liberal Santa Monica where he reportedly made a habit of harassing black and brown students.

Where he once gave a racist speech mocking and degrading the nonwhite janitorial and other school support staff.

And where he felt compelled to terminate a childhood friendship with one of his chums, Jason Islas, because he was Hispanic.

Perhaps Miller was nurtured and mentored at Duke; he was a protege of the controversial white supremacist Richard B. Spencer with whom he collaborated in bringing right-wing ideologues to spout their doctrines in Durham.

After college it was on to an association with Sessions — one of the first Republicans to support Trump — as communications director, and then the mother lode: an audience with Trump, seemingly in many ways his idol.

Reflected high school classmate Nick Silverman, there was no mistaking or confusing Miller’s agenda even then.

“He [believed] multiculturalism [was] a weakness, that when we celebrate our differences we are ignoring our ‘American culture.’ He didn’t like someone from El Salvador celebrating their homeland, or someone from Vietnam bringing in food from their country of origin. He wanted everyone to celebrate one culture. One country. At 16, Stephen was an extreme nationalist.”

Silverman continued, advising that we would be sage to “take him seriously and know that he is a dangerous person. He has a dangerous mind and a dangerous way of thinking. He wants to shift what America is about…You’ve got to stay vigilant. He’s not taking days off. If there’s one thing Miller is, and he’s a lot of things, he’s absolutely motivated. This is his entire life. This is everything for him. He’s not going to rest. He won’t rest. He won’t stop…He’s not a Trump shill. He was this way before Trump, before Bannon. He was radicalized way before that.”

Whew!!!

Wow!!!

Whoa.

Turning twisted and depraved notions of white nationalism into policy — with Trump’s help or not — is neither what this country has been nor should be about.

Migrant children torn from their parents’ arms, detained and routinely drugged with psychotropics without parental consent by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) staff, as reported by The Huffpost, is criminal and inhumane.

As are the related conditions and unthinkable associated mental and physical travails.

Stephen Miller’s fingerprints, handprints, footprints and general moral turpitude are all over this ongoing crisis.

He should be shown the door and Trump and the Bible-toting-and-quoting jughead Sessions — among others — should follow him.

Right into the executive elevator and down to the street floor.

Curbside.

As in kicked to the curb.

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in June 2018.]