Stephen Miller’s Sad Addiction
This is the guy who, along with Trump, got 4 Special Forces soldiers killed by insisting on including the African nation of Chad, the neighbouring country that provided military, cultural/linguistic (tribal diplomacy with tribal Elders) cover for U.S. forces training forces fighting ISIL in Niger, in his new iteration of his unconstitutional ‘Muslim Ban’ on September 24th. Chad expressed its bewilderment and incomprehension at this hostile act against it by its former ally, along with EVERY qualified advisor and foreign policy expert, and pulled out all of its forces from Niger the following week. A few days later, the four Special Forces operatives were ambushed and killed by an ISIL-affiliated group in Niger.
Rachel Maddow reported on aspects of this situation on October 19th. She’s on to something, and she won’t let go, of course, being Maddow. But there are details from a New York Times report in late September, at the time of the release of the new Muslim Ban iteration, that even Maddow doesn’t seem to know about or feature, that pinpoint Miller and Homeland Security’s Elaine C. Duke (notorious from the same time frame for calling the Puerto Rico effort “a good news story”) in the disastrous decision to include Chad in the new Ban. This was a decision that EVERY qualified expert and advisor counselled against at the time, but which Trump ratified at Miller’s urging. (Helene Cooper, Michael D. Shear and Dionne Searcey, ‘Chad’s Inclusion in Travel Ban Could Jeopardize American Interests, Officials Say,’ New York Times, Sept. 26th, 2017)
Details of Maddow’s report have since been verified and born out. ISIL has indeed claimed credit for the ambush. Also, it is easily verifiable that there is no longer any ground cover or military support provided by Chad in Niger, as Chad forces were pulled out in the week following the new ban. No supplementary cover or equipment was provided by the Trump administration in the wake of this withdrawal, as they are ignorant, incompetent, and bigoted against African problems, even where they involve their own so-called ‘War on Terror.’
This is why the White House doesn’t want to talk about it, and why Kelly, who is mindlessly authoritarian (a racist, misogynistic, White Nationalist, Irish Catholic from a working-class South Boston neighbourhood, like Bannon) and slavishly obedient to Trump, misrepresented (lied about), disrespected (name called), defamed, and attempted to discredit African-American Florida Congresswoman Wilson. This is especially heinous as Congresswoman Wilson is actually one of the bereaved as she is a long-time friend of the family and childhood mentor to slain Army Sergeant La David Johnson. Tellingly, Rep. Wilson is the Member of Congress leading the fight to find out the details of her former student’s death in a battle situation in Niger, where he and his fellows were under-equipped, under manned, and unsupported.
At Duke University, Miller authored a misogynist manifesto/column in the Chronicle, the Duke student newspaper, titled, ‘Sorry Feminists,’ in which he criticized Maya Angelou. He has maintained White Nationalist and Neo-Nazi ties since High School, and was a key player in the Bannon/Mercer Breitbart driven Alt-Right cyber-war juggernaut that elected Trump. His classmates have no recollection of Miller dating. “I would be shocked if he’s ever had a relationship,” says Nick Silverman, a former high-school classmate. He volubly defended the Duke La Cross players accused of of first-degree rape, sexual assault, Hate Crimes against, and kidnapping of two women of colour. As a columnist for The Chronicle, Miller defended the lacrosse players in print, despite nearly universal condemnation of them by others on campus and in the media. (William D. Cohen, ‘How Stephen Miller Rode White Rage from Duke’s Campus to Trump’s West Wing,’ Vanity Fair, Summer 2017)
“His outspoken support for the players — even before the indictments were handed up — got him plenty of national media attention, which he enthusiastically embraced. As he expounded nightly on CNN and on The O’Reilly Factor, among other television shows, it became apparent that the sordid allegations surrounding the case gave Miller the perfect opportunity to hone the right-wing political views he had espoused since adolescence. His passion for American exceptionalism and racial superiority eventually led him to jobs in Washington, D.C., first as a spokesperson for two right-wing members of Congress, Michele Bachmann and John Shadegg, and then as a policy adviser and communications director for conservative Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, now the U.S. attorney general. Sessions, with Miller at his side, almost single-handedly killed the 2013 bipartisan immigration-reform bill that would have created a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants.” (Cohen, Vanity Fair, Summer 2017)
Miller is infamous for telling CBS’s John Dickerson, without irony, “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.” As Humberto Ramirez has commented, “[Miller] is a psychopath, a narcissist that relishes being feared…just like Bannon.” This is demonstrably true; he used to get elated, like a young Hate addict, hooked on negative attention, when he could enrage a crowd at college rallies with antisocial, misanthropic, nihilist, racist, classicist, misogynist, or otherwise offensive vitriol. This was something he was deployed to do again in ‘warming up the audience’ at Trump’s 2016 campaign rallies. He’d get them roaring, even it it was in booing at him.
He would go backstage, eyes glittering, breath coming hard, heart racing, and ask the crew, “Wasn’t that great?” just as Trump is said to elicit praise from White House staff in the wake of a particularly hateful, bullying Tweet such as those repeatedly directed against non-White Gold Star families. Reactionary Hate, whether it’s for or against them, actually makes these pitiable Malignant Narcissist, White Supremacist emotional defectives high.
