Dan Pfeiffer @ MessageBox News…
For Miller to bear the lion’s share of the blame for a potentially calamitous midterm, he would need real power to shape outcomes.
Democrats have a long habit of exaggerating the influence of Republican strategists. For decades we complained about Lee Atwater. During the Bush years, Karl Rove became the villain du jour. Often, we overstated the importance of these aides, which conveniently let the president off the hook and inflated their book advances after they left office.
When it comes to Stephen Miller, however, Democrats may actually be understating his influence.
Miller is technically the deputy chief of staff for policy. In most administrations, that is an important role—but one focused largely on coordinating the policy process across a range of domestic issues. Miller’s portfolio is far broader and more powerful than anyone who has ever held that position—or almost any position in the White House.
As Josh Dawsey and Tarini Parti recently reported in The Wall Street Journal:
Miller was influential in Trump’s first term, but his power has expanded in the second one. He personally drafted or edited every executive order the president signed, and faced little opposition from administration officials to his work to reshape immigration policy. Miller helped come up with the idea to blow up drug boats, officials said, and to deport migrants to a prison in El Salvador using the wartime Alien Enemies Act, an action now under court challenge.
As this and other reporting makes clear, Miller is more influential than any cabinet secretary, the chief of staff (his nominal boss), or even the vice president. His position at the top of the internal hierarchy was on full display when he shut down J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio in the now-infamous group chat about a military strike on Yemen that accidentally included a reporter from The Atlantic.
And there is no issue on which Miller wields more power than immigration—which is precisely the problem.
Miller has driven the aggressive, high-profile ICE raids. He set the impossible enforcement quotas that require agents to pick up everyone—not just people accused of serious crimes. He orchestrated the administration’s disastrous response to the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. And he has used his influence with Trump to block any effort to de-escalate or shift course.
Trump’s mass-deportation campaign is Miller’s passion project. Trump obviously wants the spectacle, but the details—the tactics and the cruelty—are Miller’s….
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Stephen Miller took what was Trump’s greatest political strength and transformed it into a glaring vulnerability.
Democrats no longer need to fear talking about immigration and ICE. Public opinion on immigration enforcement has shifted significantly, and Americans are increasingly critical of how federal agents are operating — with majorities in recent polls saying that ICE’s actions have gone too far and that enforcement is making the country less safe. More voters now view the administration’s approach to immigration negatively, and even independents and some moderate Republicans are questioning aggressive tactics in places like Minneapolis after the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. This growing unease divides Republicans and presents Democrats with a political opening they can responsibly seize heading into November
That is why, if Republicans lose the House and/or the Senate, Stephen Miller will deserve much of the blame…..
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