President Donald Trump's longtime strategist and anti-immigration hardliner Stephen Miller is using the mounting protests against the administration's immigration policies as a pretext for harsh crackdowns on political opposition, Jonathan Chait warned in an analysis published by The Atlantic on Monday.
Miller, wrote Chait, has been escalating his rhetoric precipitously to make clear what he is doing. “There is a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country. It is well organized and funded,” Miller posted to X. “And it is shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general. The only remedy is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism and terror networks.”
He has similarly denounced the entire Democratic Party as a "domestic extremist organization."
Initially, Miller seized on the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk as the excuse for "using state power to crush political opposition," wrote Chait — but now he is moving to targeting protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as emphasized by the Trump administration's move to send federal troops into Portland as protests sprang up there.
That enforcement action is currently blocked by a judge Trump himself appointed.
In reality, said Chait, the pushback to Trump's immigration policies is just normal exercise of free speech.
"As the ruling turning down Trump’s demand to federalize law enforcement in Oregon notes, the administration’s assertion that Portland is in a state of revolution musters a total of four episodes of threatening behavior by protesters to justify this claim," he wrote.
"One of the incidents is 'protesters setting up a makeshift guillotine to intimidate federal officials.' Another was 'someone posting a photograph of an unmarked ICE vehicle online.' The other two involved flashlights being shone in the faces of agents driving vehicles. These incidents may be regrettable, but they do not even constitute actual violence, let alone terrorism."
The implication of all this is clear, Chait continued. Miller, along with the president himself, "appears to believe his side stands for what is right and good, and his opponents stand for what is evil. Any methods used by Trump are ipso facto justified, and any methods used against him illegitimate."
"Violence is not the cause of Trump and Miller’s desire to use state power to crush their opposition," he concluded ominously. "It is the pretext for which they transparently long."