Does Evil Reincarnate Itself? The Case of White House Advisor Stephen Miller
Stephen Miller eerily channels a monster from the past.
Both share that ice-hearted, dead-eyed look of one who has sold his soul to the devil. Both share unbridled ambition and lust for power. Both spew forth lies with the conviction of those who are utterly conscience-free. Both are true believers - one extolled the theory of a "master race," leading to genocide; the other is adept at dog whistle blasts to a base of supporters more than touched by racism. One was dubbed by his boss, "the man with the iron heart." The other earned the sobriquet, "Mad Men," for his atavistic tastes in fashion. Both reached the pinnacle of power in their 30s. The receding hairline, the pouty lips, isosceles noses, the Arctic stare. Reinhard Heydrich is regarded by historians as the most fearsome member of the Nazi elite, a mastermind of the holocaust. Presidential senior advisor Stephen Miller, at 31, is still writing the early chapters of his life. But what he's shown us so far is disturbing, reason to send a chill into the heart of anyone who treasures democratic society.
This is the second time I succumb to Godwin's Law in my blog: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler becomes inevitable. For this, I humbly apologize. Now, let's delve into the Miller-Heydrich connection further.
Miller has said:
“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.”
“That’s the story we should be talking about and I’m prepared to go on any show anywhere anytime and repeat it and say the president of the United States is correct 100 percent.”
Heydrich:
"It is almost too hard for the individual, but we must be as hard as granite, otherwise the work of our Fuhrer will perish."
Hm. Scared yet?
How about Miller's doubling down on one of Donald Trumps' most brazen lies: "We know for a fact, you have massive numbers of non-citizens registered to vote in this country. Nobody disputes that." Oh, really? Read more of Miller's public pronouncements for more decidedly Third Reichian turns of phrase and mendacity.
Or his excoriating a reporter at a recent White House press conference for being a "cosmopolitan"? Miller and his colleague Steve Bannon describe themselves as "nationalists." Joseph Goebbels often emphasized that the Nazis were nationalists, rejecting any form of "cosmopolitanism." Now how did Miller come up with that one, if not channeling from some karmic antecedent?
A schoolmate of Miller's wrote he “was an unabashed racist. No, I’m not being over sensitive and no, I’m not using the 'r' word where it doesn’t apply. In private conversations he was constantly making disparaging remarks about the African-American, Latino and Asian students at our school.” Another told Univision that Miller seemed to have “an intense hatred toward people of color, especially toward Latinos."
In a profile of Miller, POLITICO said, "There is something eerily vintage about Miller’s stump speeches. The combination of their substance—vilifying immigrants as killers, the promise of nativist glory days ahead—and their delivery with a calm face around a loud, droning mouth, slicked-back hair and sharp suit, floridly invoking powerful cabals against the people: All of it harks back to an earlier time. It’s as if the video should be in black and white, and the microphone in front of Miller an antique, metallic affair... 'You almost want to put him in a previous era,' says Marcus Peacock, who worked with Miller on the Senate Budget Committee."
"A previous era"? Like, say 80, or so, years ago?
A historian has analyzed Heydrich as "a deeply split personality. This menacing figure with its apparently well-knit, compact inhumanity concealed a nervously irritable individual, subject to secret anxieties and continually plagued by tension, bitterness and self-hatred. His cynicism, the sign of complex weakness and vulnerability, alone betrayed what his elastic youthfulness concealed. His hardness and imperviousness were founded less in a tendency to sadistic brutality, as is popularly believed, than in the forced absence of conscience."
Stephen Miller strikes this writer as fitting this description aptly.
In its philosophy of karma, Tibetan Buddhism believes, To die with a peaceful mind will stimulate a virtuous seed and a fortunate rebirth; a disturbed mind will stimulate a non-virtuous seed and an unfortunate rebirth.
Could the disturbed soul of Reinhard Heydrich have returned?
Think about it. These guys in the White House scare the wits out of me. And they should you as well.
See also:
Ghosts That We Knew: The curious case of Trump advisor Sebastian Gorka