The Prince

Stephen Miller came to the White House with Jeff Sessions and was widely regarded as the author of the first Muslim travel ban that was blown out of the water by the federal courts.  After two rewritings, the Supreme Court upheld it largely because North Korea and Venezuela were tossed in, no longer making the designated countries exclusively Muslim.  The "90-day" ban has remained in effect since September 2017 because its constitutionality hasn't been fully determined by the USSC.

These are the kind of games Miller plays.  He is a modern day Machiavelli in King Trump's court, finding ways to circumvent the law to achieve the kind of authority the Donald demands.  When others don't oblige, i.e. Kristjen Nielsen, they are let go.  The court jester is now seen as the go-to guy on immigration and so far the Republican Senate has shown little appetite to challenge the President's authority on the matter.

That may change after this latest purge.  It's not just Kruelja de Nielsen, but a whole host of immigration officials who have been let go for not re-instating Miller's, I mean Trump's policies on immigration.  The horror stories are coming out.  There was a point where Miller suggested dumping all migrants on sanctuary cities in retaliation for Democratic insubordination to his policies, namely his attempt to repeal the Dream Act. 

None of these ideas come from Trump.  He simply parrots them.  Miller and Sessions were the authors of his draconian immigration policy that led to a flood of federal court challenges and has left an estimated 2000 children separated from their parents.  The forced separations, which the Trump administration tried to pawn off on Obama, was the big story last summer and helped propel Democrats to a stunning House victory in the Fall.  Although Trump was forced to rescind the separation policy, his immigration department has drug its heels when it came to reuniting families and is now seeking a two-year extension, having long missed the deadline imposed by the federal courts.  Many of these kids will be permanently lost in the system, and that's just fine by Trump, as he seems to think the policy worked.  When he tried to reinstate it recently, Nielsen said no only to find herself let go.

Stephen Miller is quite the rising star in the alt-right universe, although woe be it to anyone to call him a white supremacist, especially if you happen to be Muslim.  It doesn't matter if he was the author of the first Muslim travel ban, or all the anti-Muslim things he has openly said, Ilhan Omar is once again being called anti-Semitic for attacking Miller, who happens to be Jewish.

The absurdity of Miller's hardline approach to immigration, given his background, is not lost on the media.  His mother's ancestors immigrated to the US in the early 20th century following the Russian pogroms in the Pale of the Empire, as did many other Jews.  He wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for an open immigration policy at the time that saw a great influx of Eastern Europeans to the United States.  But, what's good for the goose is apparently not good for the gander.  Now that we see more and more Muslims seeking asylum in the US as the result of US-backed wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, "our country is full," says Lord Donald.  Words no doubt fed to him by Stephen Miller.

It's not just Muslims, but Latin Americans too, namely those from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, which Trump has added to his list of "shithole countries" that are no longer worthy of US aid.  Again, this was a decision most likely made for him by Miller, who wants to Make America White Again.

For years, conservatives have bemoaned the demographic shift in this country.  Way back in 1992 when Pat Buchanan first ran for president (Stephen Miller was still in diapers), he warned anyone who would listen that America was losing its Polident whiteness and if we didn't do something quick, Whites would become the minority in America.  Charles Blow sums it up well as "White Extinction Anxiety," which Pat is still spreading on venues like The Laura Ingraham Show.  Not even he could imagine the degree to which this administration would go to curb immigration, both legal and illegal.

The list of countries with little or no visa services continues to grow, as the White House builds an imaginary wall around the country.  It sees all immigrants as potential Democrats and it can't have that. We have a White Republican minority to protect.  Even Russians are finding it hard to get visas to the US, turning to countries on more friendly terms with the US to apply for visas.

Young Stephen Miller, barely older than that young bartender Trump loves to tease, is essentially running the country at this point with no one left to stop him from implementing his heinous immigration policies or anything else for that matter.  Miller is in command of the White House and the alt-right couldn't be anymore pleased, especially Papa Bear Steve Bannon, whose been trying to stir up White Extinction Anxiety in Europe ever since stepping down from Breitbart early last year.

While all this faux anxiety is great in stirring up Trump's base, it is even better in stirring up the opposition.  Miller has moved from the background to the front line of the war on immigration, and as such will come under much more scrutiny by the press and one hopes by members of Congress.  These policy decisions go against the very grain of the Constitution and one would expect Republicans to take note, as Chuck Grassley appears to be doing.   However, we have heard this whining before and it tends to die down pretty quickly when it comes to actually pushing a resolution through Congress. 

Miller knows Republican Congresspersons are powerless in the face of their conservative constituencies, which overwhelming favor Donald Trump.  Only problem is what happens next November when 22 of these Republican senators are up for election in states that are not necessarily favorable to Trump's policies? 

For once, the political calculus of the Senate elections doesn't favor the Republicans and even Mitch the Turtle is starting to worry a little bit.  The GOP got by in 2018 because only 9 Republican Senate seats were up for election, while the Democrats had to defend 25 seats.  Now, the calculus is reversed and it is Republicans who find themselves in the hot seats, including Mitch who is polling miserably low in Kentucky right now.  McConnell should be more worried about placing a "firewall" between Stephen Miller and Donald Trump than he should be placing one against Democratic Socialists.

If the Democrats don't shoot themselves in the foot, which is always a possibility, 2020 is their election to lose.  Virtually anyone of the Democratic challengers is more popular than Donald Trump right now, who likewise finds himself in the uncomfortable position of having to defend himself.  He is no longer the insurgent candidate determined to topple the Clinton dynasty.  His administration has become the establishment everyone wants to topple, and that is largely thanks to the heinous policies set by Stephen Miller and other political neophytes in his White House.