Stephen Miller, 31, prepares to speak to Sunday morning news programs (2/12/17)
“Our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the President to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned…” -- Stephen Miller, B.A., White House Policy Adviser
These are strong words from Donald Trump’s 31-year old White House senior(?) policy adviser who has added his name to the list of sycophantic mouthpieces employed by the President to man his bully pulpit. It’s bad enough that you expect the first part of his statement to be followed by “…will soon witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!” It’s laughable.
Miller is a young man who emerged from liberal Santa Monica, California and quickly made his nationalistic, xenophobic beliefs heard in his high school newspaper and on its radio station. His appeal to the likes of Donald Trump and Steve Bannon is his ability to pick fights through the use of offensive, highly controversial statements and his shared beliefs on the immigration status of groups other than white men.
For the record, Stephen Miller has no law degree, no graduate degree in foreign policy, no graduate degree in international affairs, or no advanced degree in diplomacy, no experience drafting and/or initiating policy, and, as such, has zero experience or educational background to speak to the limits to the President’s power. In addition, Miller “cut his teeth” through his work with political extremists like Michelle Bachmann and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, the newly sworn-in Attorney General whose own nomination hearings included the reading of very strong anti-Sessions (anti-racist) statements by the late Coretta Scott King.
The isolationist, fear-mongering Trump administration could not have picked a more suitable mouthpiece. Stephen Miller is a bully. BUT, he is the type of bully that is often found hiding behind a keyboard or cozying up to the bigger bullies for fear of actually getting into a fight. Some critics have labeled him a “gadfly,” which is a persistent, small insect that annoys livestock.
The blustering statements made by Miller across the Sunday news magazine programs were broadcast in large part because it was a safe environment from which he could readily spew lies and propaganda. This is a classic cyberbully tactic, directing a negative or dangerous message, intended to exclude or hurt another party, without seeing the reactions of their audience or facing the threat of immediate consequences.
I would like to see Stephen Miller make the same statements in front of a battalion of troops who have pledged to defend the Constitution, a Navy Seal Team returning from a mission in which they lost one of their men, an immigrant family torn apart by a hastily crafted travel ban (largely authored by Miller), the Chinese President, or North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
This was one of Miller’s statements on Sunday, “I am prepared to go on any show, anywhere, anytime and repeat it and say the president of the United States is correct one hundred percent.” Shortly thereafter, Trump responded by tweeting, “Congratulations Stephen Miller- on representing me this morning on the various Sunday morning shows. Great job!”
The smaller, conniving bully scratches the bigger bully’s back and it is then reciprocated.
What Miller and Trump share is an extreme level of arrogance coupled with very little self-awareness. It is this combination that allows the bully to succeed…until challenged. And they will be challenged: by the American people, by the Judiciary, by an adherence to the truth, and by an outright rejection of “alternative facts.”
For Mr. Miller and those who are still clinging to fantasy: there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, there are checks and balances to the President’s powers, America will not stand for an authoritarian regime, and the President’s legitimacy will continue to be questioned as long as he maintains his multitude of domestic and foreign conflicts of interest.
