{"id":99459,"date":"2016-06-27T07:19:26","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T15:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=99459"},"modified":"2016-06-27T07:19:26","modified_gmt":"2016-06-27T15:19:26","slug":"politico-how-stephen-miller-went-from-obscure-capitol-hill-staffer-to-donald-trumps-warm-up-act-and-resident-ideologue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=99459","title":{"rendered":"Politico: How Stephen Miller went from obscure Capitol Hill staffer to Donald Trump\u2019s warm-up act\u2014and resident ideologue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Julia Ioffe writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019M IN HEAVEN!\u201d Ann Coulter tweeted when it was announced in late January that Trump had hired Miller, whom Coulter called \u201cSessions\u2019 brain trust.\u201d The hire, Coulter felt, offered a sign that Trump was \u201cnot backing down on immigration.\u201d
\nHow did Stephen Miller come to occupy such an extreme position on immigration? Strangely, it was his experience coming of age in a liberal Jewish family in liberal Santa Monica, the Berkeley of southern California. \u201cI think it was growing up in California, he saw the role that mass migration played turning a red state blue,\u201d says one former Senate colleague. \u201cHe was fearful that that would happen to the rest of the country.\u201d
\nMiller was born into a family of lawyers and salesmen, two professions he never pursued but clearly has in him. His parents were Democrats, but Miller was pulled in a different direction early, converted to the conservative cause by a copy of NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre\u2019s 1994 book, Guns, Crime, and Freedom, a blistering takedown of the arguments for gun control.
\nMiller was an ardent, dewy-eyed patriot, which often led him to surprising conclusions. Shortly after graduating high school, Miller penned a column for a Christian publication called \u201cMy Dream for the End of Racism.\u201d \u201cThe U.S. abolished slavery in 90 years, a time span far shorter than that of other nations, and indeed we acquired emancipation through our bloodiest, most gruesome war,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThis no doubt due to the unique status of our beloved nation as being one founded on the principle of equality.\u201d
\nThe 9\/11 attacks hit when Miller was a junior at Santa Monica High School. The event shocked him to his core and left him feeling isolated in his patriotism, lost in a sea of peacenik liberalism. \u201cDuring that dreadful time of national tragedy, anti-Americanism had spread all over the school like a rash,\u201d he reminisced in a column called \u201cHow I Changed My Left-Wing High School.\u201d \u201cThe co-principal broadcasted his doubts about the morality of the air strikes against the Taliban to the entire school via the PA system. One teacher even dragged the American flag across the floor as we were sending off brave young men to risk their lives for it.” Miller describes contacting conservative talk radio personality Larry Elder, and going on his show to complain about this school. Thus began a cycle that would repeat itself over and over in high school and college: Miller would clash with school administrators over a perceived leftist conspiracy\u2014the school not saying the Pledge of Allegiance, say\u2014then escalate the conflict by taking it to a conservative talk show, infuriating the administrators but yielding a compromise in Miller\u2019s favor. After his appeal to Elder, for instance, the Pledge of Allegiance would now be said twice a week, though that was still not enough for Miller. \u201cPolicy dictates it should be said every day,\u201d he wrote in a local paper.
\nThe pattern repeated itself often enough that Miller wore it as a badge of honor. \u201cStephen Miller, 17 years old, just graduated from Santa Monica High School,\u201d the bio under his column read. \u201cSince his Junior year in High School, he has been a guest on local and national radio over thirty times, primarily as an advocate for freedom in education.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Julia Ioffe writes: \u201cI\u2019M IN HEAVEN!\u201d Ann Coulter tweeted when it was announced in late January that Trump had hired Miller, whom Coulter called \u201cSessions\u2019 brain trust.\u201d The hire, Coulter felt, offered a sign that Trump was \u201cnot backing down … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21791],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99460,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99459\/revisions\/99460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}