USA | Stephen Miller: The devil in Trump's ear

Stephen Miller Photo: AFP/Getty Images/ALEX WONG Donald Trump surprised everyone on the lost election night last week with two statements: "I recognize the election results." And: "We will work with the Democrats." The first sentence still applies, with the exception of a few social media posts about two close races for Senate positions that have not yet been completely counted. The backlog in the rest of the nation was simply too great to credibly claim manipulation. However, just a few days later, Trump removed any truth from the second sentence with a single personnel decision: the promotion of Stephen Miller to his new chief of staff in the White House.

If you exclude Trump, the 41-year-old Miller is the hate figure par excellence for the opposition Democratic Party. After all, Miller, like the proverbial devil in his ear, whispered to the President almost every xenophobic idea of ​​the past decade: It began with Trump's inaugural speech "America First" in January 2016, which was written by speechwriter Miller. Likewise the subsequent entry ban for Muslims when he was promoted to senior domestic policy advisor.

Miller also separated families who had crossed the border without authorization: parents were sent back to Mexico, while some of their children were locked in cages. Cruelty as a means of deterrence has always been a leitmotif of his activities.

Miller also wrote parts of Trump's speech, which thousands of supporters interpreted as the starting signal for the storming of the Capitol in January 2021 after the lost presidential election. After Trump's re-election, Miller became deputy chief of staff and went to work with even more freedom. He is said to have set high quotas of 3,000 people for arrest at the border guards and the immigration authority ICE who were supposedly living in the USA illegally and who were then to be deported. And although the protests against the subsequent ICE raids across the country became a catalyst for popular resistance, Trump once again promoted it.

Miller, a pure racist who seems obsessed with the idea that white people in the United States are on the verge of extinction and that he must therefore create an all-white America, held these views early in his California high school and later at Duke University, where he studied political science.

As long as Trump doesn't fire him, he will stay by his side. After all, Miller is one of so few members of the Trump administration who have been there without interruption since 2016 that you don't even need a full hand to count them. He also managed this because he never filled a position that required congressional approval, as is common for ministers and some secretaries of state. He is also not threatened with impeachment proceedings by the opposition.

Stephen Miller wanted to get into politics from an early age. But never to make a career there, but to enforce his racist world views. To do this, he almost always initially sought out those vehicles that were furthest to the right: MPs Michele Bachmann and John Shadegg, for example, or former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. At some point he arrived at the White House and now the Oval Office. Now he determines the daily agenda of the US President - finally without middlemen.

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