Stephen Miller reportedly gave a middle school friend a list of reasons why they couldn't be pals in high school, including that he was Latino
President Trump's senior adviser, Stephen Miller, was "radicalized" long before ever jumping on Trump and Stephen Bannon's wagon, Miller's former high school and college classmates told Vanity Fair. "He has a dangerous mind and a dangerous way of thinking. He wants to shift what America is about," said Miller's former high school classmate, Nick Silverman.
But Miller's radical worldview — marked by being the lone defender of accused rapists on the Duke campus, or by calling America a "white county" that is "our creation … our inheritance, and it belongs to us" — started even before high school, one friend recalled:
Silverman added that Miller hasn't changed much since he was a teenager.
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"I can hear that kind of nationalistic, America-First American culture," he told Vanity Fair. "That's that same Stephen from junior year. He hasn't gone anywhere. That's still him." Read more about Miller's worldview and roots at Vanity Fair.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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