Stephen Miller's uncle repudiates his nephew's harsh stance toward immigrants


To President Trump, Stephen Miller is a senior policy adviser. To David Glosser, he's his "immigration hypocrite" of a nephew.
Last August, Glosser, a retired neuropsychologist, penned an essay about Miller, the architect of Trump's harsh immigration policies. Glosser wrote that their relatives came to the U.S. in the early 1900s from Europe, fleeing anti-Jewish violence, and he shuddered to think "of what would have become of the Glossers had the same policies Stephen so coolly espouses" been in effect.
His message didn't get through to Miller, Glosser said on Monday's Rachel Maddow Show, but he didn't think it would, as Miller's "entire career, his entire persona, is built on this particular issue." Glosser did hear from others whose families came to the U.S. under similar circumstances, he said, and seeing Americans speaking out against the Trump administration's treatment of immigrants shows that "people care, as it turns out."
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The political reasoning behind Trump's cruel policies is simple, Glosser said. The Republican Party and demographers found that in a few decades, the U.S. will go from being a "white majority country to being a white plurality country. As it turns out, the people who are not predominately of European background are less likely to vote for Republicans than for Democrats. This makes it problematic for them if they anticipate remaining in positions of power in order to advance their particular agenda." Because of this, he said, it's "not worthwhile for them to allow people into the country or to allow people to gain citizenship who may not be members of their party in the future."
Glosser said he finds it "repugnant" that the Trump administration assumes a majority of white Americans are racist, and thought the country had repudiated racism since George Wallace's 1968 presidential run. "Now we see Mr. Trump and his minions have legitimized race hatred as a means of sustaining and gaining political power and influence," he said.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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