American voters have just delivered a resounding "no pass" to Donald Trump in the midterm elections.
Some could see that as a reason for the president to tone down at least some of his policies. Like the raids carried out by the migration police ICE across the country, the attacks on the media or the hunt for real and perceived enemies.
Instead, Trump goes the other way.
Susie Wiles, the now-fired White House chief of staff, was seen by many as a sometimes moderating force. But her successor, Stephen Miller, has instead, according to many sources, encouraged and fueled the president's most aggressive and extreme instincts.
In particular, this applies to questions of immigration.
Already in his former position as deputy chief of staff, Miller was considered the architect behind the mass deportations and ICE's brutal methods. Just as he, during Trump's first term, was behind the immigration freeze from a number of Muslim countries. Or the tactic of separating children and parents at the border.
During this term, it is Miller who has personally written the text of many of Trump's most controversial orders. Talking points like calling immigration "an invasion" and Somalis "garbage" are his ideas. He has been called "Trump's brain".
The 41-year-old has thus long had enormous power, over politics and over Trump's thinking. It will be even bigger on Monday when he takes over as chief of staff.
But his political beliefs were evidently established already during the late 90s.
Jason Islas was close friends with Stephen Miller back then, in his younger teens. They were part of a nerdy trio who shared an interest in the television series "Star Trek."
But during the summer vacation between eighth and ninth grade, Miller reached out and said he didn't want them to be friends anymore. Islas has told NPR that Miller had a whole list of reasons for ending the friendship. Among other things, that he was too strange and too short.
- But one reason stood out. That was my background as a Latino.
Those who have dug into Stephen Miller's past find many similar clues to his dislike of non-white immigrants.
His, in the eyes of many, extreme ideology appears as an ongoing rebellion against a liberal family in a liberal and multicultural part of the United States. In this case Santa Monica in Southern California.
He became a provocateur who shocked students and teachers at his high school with xenophobic views. He demanded that all messages in Spanish be abolished. He gave a speech in which he heckled the school's cleaners—mostly all immigrants—for not justifying their wages.
Even before he turned 20, Miller was a regular guest on a radio talk show with a right-wing audience.
Despite his youth, he behaved like a middle-aged man. A conservative newspaper editor tells of how a 16-year-old Miller walked into his office and asked to write opinion pieces.
"He came in a jacket and tie, sometimes in a tuxedo, and he smoked a pipe."
Today, large parts of his own Jewish and liberal family have distanced themselves from him. His uncle, the psychologist David Glosser, already wrote an article in 2018 in which he distanced himself from his nephew from the perspective that his family found sanctuary in the United States and thus could avoid the Holocaust:
"I have watched with dismay and horror as my nephew, an educated man well aware of his origins, has become the architect of an immigration policy that would have nullified our family's existence in this country."
During the election campaign, Donald Trump has constantly denied that Susie Wiles would be fired. But White House sources have told the media that he had already made up his mind — but long hesitated over who would get the job after Wiles.
Decisive for Trump, many believe, was that Miller has always been one hundred percent loyal to him.
What will Stephen Miller do with his increased power? Mass deportations may intensify again. Like the "revenge" against politicians, institutions and states that Trump perceives as enemies.
And with Miller now becoming the White House's top chief of staff, many more purges are expected among the president's advisers.
The result will be an even more Trump-loyal administration than the current one. Which may not increase the Republicans' chances in the next election.
Read more:
Karl Dalén: Who holds Trump's leash when Susie Wiles disappears?
